Purrfect Harmony
by Eponymous Rose
Summary: The Purrfect Harmony Animal Shelter's financial situation is deteriorating rapidly, but with her crew of dedicated fosters, an alarmingly invested staff, and the two mysterious new volunteers who seem more at home in a combat zone than a room full of kittens, Vanessa's going to keep fighting this battle. Whether she wants to or not.
1. Catalyst

Vanessa Kimball breathed slowly, tapping her fingers on the steering wheel, and waited for the final track on her _**Sounds of Essences of Lifetimes of Relaxation**_ CD to drift to a meandering close. She'd been sitting in the parking lot for almost ten minutes at this point, but she'd also promised Donut she'd give the damn CD a try, and he was beaming out at her from behind the glass of the front doors of the building, so. Another two minutes of whale sounds and vague babbling brooks awaited.

Still drumming on the steering wheel, she glanced around the parking lot. One or two unfamiliar cars, although those probably belonged to the volunteers. Still early in the day, and they'd shelled out money for a cheesy radio ad advertising their 'pre-owned and affordable cats with no purchase financing!' that was set to air later that day, so that'd probably draw in a few people. Nothing to worry about yet. Just a quiet morning. Sure.

She was about to break and reach for the stack of papers she'd been editing for a physics student who had a particularly hot-and-heavy relationship with a thesaurus when the CD finally burbled and whined its way to a close. She took a breath, hit the eject button, and resisted the urge to snap it in half on the spot. Once it was safely ensconced in its clipart-laden jewel case, she reached back to grab the empty carrier in the backseat, a donation from her aunt, and straightened up, kicking the car door shut as she went. There was just enough of a chill in the air to make her wish she'd brought her jacket, but the skies were clear, and hell, maybe it'd warm up before the day was over.

"Pretty relaxing, right?" Donut called as she stepped through the doors. The little jingly bells had broken off a while ago, but she still heard them in the back of her head, a weird non-echo. "How do you feel?"

"Super relaxed," Kimball said, moving up to lean on the front desk across from him. "I am so relaxed right now that I can't even express my level of relaxation."

"Aw," Donut said. "Not so big on the CD?"

Kimball sighed, holding the case up between two fingers. "I appreciate it, Donut, I really do. Maybe some of us just aren't meant to relax."

"Blasphemy," muttered Grif, from where he was leaning back in a chair just out of sight of the front door, reading what looked like one of Simmons' comic books and crunching down on a handful of cookies that Kimball fervently hoped were meant for humans and not dogs.

"That's totally fine, Kimball!" Donut announced. "You hold on to that CD just in case, and we'll come up with something new in the meantime. Doc knows some really great relaxation techniques!"

Kimball blinked, trying to reconcile her mental picture of the shelter's intense resident veterinarian with ocean waves and soft rainfall. "Dr. Grey... relaxes?"

"What? No, no, the new guy! DuFresne! Vet assistant you hired last week, you remember him?"

"Oh," said Kimball. She vaguely recalled a nervous, new-agey type who jumped every time a dog barked. "Oh, good, that makes so much more sense."

"Yeah, he's _super_ nice, I'll be sure to tell him you're interested in cleansing your mind!"

Kimball managed a faint chuckle as she hefted the dusty carrier over to one corner of the room, to be disinfected by whichever bored college-student volunteer they'd managed to rope into the cleaning shift today. "Well, I can tell you right now, working here some days I need the brain bleach."

Donut's mind shrugged off analogy and double-entendre like a duck shrugged off water. He clicked his tongue disapprovingly. "Bleach is a little harsh, and not at all eco-friendly! Working in an environmentally conscious field like this, you should always be aware of that."

"Right," Kimball said. "How could I have forgotten." She managed to push the carrier up on top of the teetering stack, then took a step back and eyed it critically. "Hey, Grif?"

"Busy!" Grif called, turning a page.

"Can you get some of these disinfected? We're gonna need them to take the cats to their next vet appointment, and I don't think we'll want to wait for cleaning shift to show up."

"No, see, I'm on the dog side," Grif said. "Can't help you. Wish I could, I really do, but I can't get all those prissy, sensitive cats riled up with the dogs' actually-gives-a-fuck-about-you slobbery ways. Besides, there could be an adoption any time now, and they'll need me. Urgently."

"Grif," Kimball said, warningly.

He groaned and shuffled into view, still clutching the comic book in one hand. "I don't get how you can make a _volunteer job_ that I am _volunteering for_ seem like the sort of position where I can get actively threatened into doing _work_."

"Does Simmons know you just got chocolate on his comic book?" Kimball crossed her arms. "I could see him getting a little annoyed at that. If someone were to tell him."

Grif glanced down at it, then back up at her with narrowed eyes. "See, you raise a good point, and I'll just. I'll just go ahead and drag these carriers outside to clean them."

"Good," Kimball said, and reached out to grab a swipe of hand sanitizer from the dispenser on the counter before elbowing her way through the door into the cat side of the shelter.

The Purrfect Harmony Animal Shelter had the dubious distinction of being the third-largest animal rescue in the county, with around fifty cats and fifty dogs in residence at any given time. It was also a small facility, a building that Kimball and three friends had invested in together in their ambitious and philanthropic post-college days. The other three had backed out, one by one, and suddenly a little project that was meant to be a sideline on her CV had become a full-time job. A full-time job, of course, that paid about as much as a part-time job. Thank goodness for credulous physics students with deep pockets and poor grammar who believed her when she said she was a qualified editor with ten years' professional experience and a Master's degree.

The cat side of the shelter had always been Kimball's domain, and once she'd found someone willing to take her meager financial offering to head up the dog side, she'd moved to working there full-time. Splitting her time hadn't been pretty; she still tried not to think about some of the adoptions that were approved or fell through the cracks when they really shouldn't have. But now that she was more settled, things were stabilizing. They had an actual, qualified vet on staff. They had just hired their second veterinary assistant. They had a handful of regular day-to-day volunteers, a couple of fosters, and a steady stream of rotating college students who needed to fulfill extracurricular requirements and were happy to do the grunt work for a week or two.

Now all they needed was for people to, you know, actually come in and adopt the animals.

"Miss Kimball!"

Kimball turned from her contemplation of one of the free-roam rooms—Princess Fluffypants was hunkered down with her ears flattened and seemed about ready to swat at the inquisitive Bob The Cat—to see Katie Jensen standing next to her, clipboard in hand, hair pulled back into neat, tight braids and a beaming smile on her lips. "Hi, Jensen. You don't need to keep calling me 'Miss'. We seem to have fallen into calling each other by our last names here, and that's weird and formal enough as it is."

She didn't miss the way Jensen's face fell a bit at her use of the word 'weird' and mentally chastised herself. But Jensen bounced back, smiling a little more cautiously. "Sorry, ma'am. Kimball. Um. Palomo and Bitters are on shift, and Smith's in the back giving Tangerine her shots."

"Good," Kimball said, and pushed into the room, mostly to distract Princess Fluffypants from her new prey. She bent down beside the cat and made a show of checking her long fur for mats or tangles—as though Smith the Ever-Vigilant Veterinary Assistant would let something like that slide. Princess Fluffypants suffered the inspection in silence, allowing Bob The Cat to creep away and hop up into a cage. "No members of the public in the building?"

"Nope," Jensen said. "I mean, I'm sure more will come along soon!" She sneezed loudly, grimaced, and reached out to disinfect her hands again. Kimball had been worried the first few times Jensen had reacted like that around the cats, but had been hastily reassured that Jensen was _absolutely_ not allergic to cats. Definitely not. At least, no more than she was allergic to everything else. "Sorry. Matthews is coming in soon. So's Vlb."

Kimball glanced up. "Beg pardon?"

"Haha," Jensen said. Her skin was too dark to show a blush, but damned if it wasn't trying. "What? No, um. Matthews and um. And Volleyball. That's what I call her. I don't know her real name. She always forgets her name tag. She plays volleyball a lot. And um. She plays volleyball."

"Okay," Kimball said, hiding a smile. Princess Fluffypants, upset at the lack of attention, trilled and butted her hand with her head until Kimball relented and scratched her behind the ears. "Hey, Jensen, can I ask you a favor?"

Jensen straightened up. "Oh! Yes, ma'am, Kimball, absolutely!"

"Why don't you show Volleyball the ropes? It looks like it'll be a quiet day, and you should probably get some more managerial experience."

"Yes!" Jensen coughed. "I mean, uh. Yes. Yes, that is a thing that I can do." She paused at the doorway. "Oh, and you know how you approved a couple of new volunteer applications? Should be coming in today as well. They must've put in pretty good apps!"

"Great," Kimball said, and watched Jensen leave. Once she was gone, she leaned in to Princess Fluffypants and whispered, conspiratorially, "Nobody reads the damn volunteer applications. We need all the help we can get, we're not gonna be picky. Don't tell anyone."

Princess Fluffypants blinked, slowly.

"You're so good at keeping secrets," Kimball told her, and gave her a pat before getting to her feet and moving back into the hallway, reaching for another squirt of hand sanitizer with a grimace. She knew it kept the cats from sharing germs—and dealing with the last round of URIs had been enough to make her want to put each cat in its own individual protective bubble—but surely the gunk had by now seeped through her skin and replaced her blood with something that killed 99.9% of bacteria. She could probably make a decent living as a superhero with a power like that.

She paused at the door to the Cattery, where the majority of the facility's cats were caged, and made a face at her reflection in the glass. Already punchy five minutes into the day. Good start.

She pushed in through the door and was greeted by a cacophony of meows, which meant that Ellie had started yowling and had gotten all the other cats riled up. Palomo was standing in front of Ellie's cage and appeared to be deep in conversation with her. "Like, I know you're all angry and everything with the world and, like. Sometimes I want to meow at everything too? So I do? But people kind of look at me funny? So. Maybe not the best approach. Just stop meowing? Have you considered trying that?"

"Oh my god, Palomo," Kimball said, and reached past him to the open next cage, grab a kitten, and put it into Ellie's cage with her. As it settled in to nurse, Ellie gave a contented rumbling purr and stopped yowling. "She's still weaning them, but it's okay to give her one every now and then to keep her calm. Once the kittens are weaned and she gets spayed, the yowling should die off. Okay?"

"Ohhh," Palomo said, as though Kimball hadn't shown him this trick two weeks ago. "That makes sense."

"I heard a cage open back there," Smith called from the back of the room. "Sanitize before touching the next cat, please."

"I swear he has eyes in the back of his head," Kimball said, and winked at Palomo as she moved down the row of cages to grab yet another dollop of sanitizing goop.

"That seems anatomically unlikely!" called a particularly chipper voice. "Although it would probably make for a pretty cool science experiment."

"No experimenting on the cats, Dr. Grey," Kimball said, rounding the corner to see Grey giving Tangerine a shot while Smith held the cat steady.

Grey looked genuinely hurt. "I'd never experiment on these animals."

"Sorry," Kimball said, startled at the reaction. "I was just making a bad joke."

"It's fine!" Grey grinned, and gently rubbed at the spot where she'd injected Tangerine. "Besides, I thought we were talking about experimenting on Smith!"

Smith didn't so much as flinch, but his determinedly pleasant smile got a little more determinedly pleasant.

"This place is so weird," muttered a new voice at her elbow, and Kimball turned to see Bitters standing at her side, hands behind his back, rocking on his heels. "Hey."

Bitters actually seeking her out to say hello was an event so unusual as to be recorded in the annals of history. Bitters looking nervous while doing so ramped the weirdness factor up to eleven. "Hi," Kimball said, cautiously. "Everything okay?"

Bitters shrugged. "Eh."

Kimball squinted at him. He was about as inscrutable as her seventeen-year-old niece, and he had to be a half-decade older at least. "If I go in to check the census spreadsheet in the kitchen, will you follow me in a noncommittal way until you finally decide to say what you want to say?"

"That is how I operate," Bitters said, perfectly deadpan, but he couldn't quite hide the flash of relief in his eyes.

"No crises?" Kimball asked, turning to Grey.

Grey's grin was in no way dampened when Smith's grip on Tangerine slipped and the cat landed a solid scratch across her arm; she just gently scruffed the cat and put her back in her cage, then reached for a patch of gauze to stop the bleeding. Smith, inured to Dr. Grey's mannerisms through over a year of experience, had to know that it would be pointless to apologize, although he did flinch sympathetically. Grey beamed. "No crises. Everyone's in good shape! Max had his kidney results come back, and he's stabilizing, so I think we'll be able to reintroduce him into the shelter population soon!"

"That's great news," Kimball said, already shifting and rearranging cages and supplies in her mind to try to make room for one more. "C'mon, Bitters, let's walk in this general direction to talk so you can maintain your emotionally distant persona."

Bitters shrugged, stuffing his hands in his pockets and slouching after her into the kitchen, their makeshift office. He waited until she was halfway through checking the list of intakes for the week before saying, "So I don't want to do the Braun adoption."

Kimball glanced up from her laptop. "Okay. We'll give it to Jensen. Her schedule's pretty open."

Bitters stared at her. She stared back. Bitters said, "I mean, it's not that I can't do it. It's that I don't want to."

"Okay."

Bitters narrowed his eyes. "Look, I just. It's depressing as fuck, okay?"

Kimball wondered if she could get away with secretly pulling up the Braun file on the laptop and getting up-to-speed without losing her appearance of infallibility. Probably not, the way the day had been going so far. "Jog my memory?"

"Old lady knows she's dying in five or six years, wants an old dying cat to keep her company until she goes." Bitters grimaced. "Fuck that."

"Okay," Kimball said. "I get that it's a hard case. Has she picked a cat?"

Bitters shrugged. "Not really. She just comes in here and hangs out with them. We don't have any sickly older cats that fit the bill."

"You heard Grey. Max is coming back from the vet," Kimball said. "He's a sweet cat, but he's probably only got a couple years left at most. Can she handle the vet bills?"

"Her son's a vet," Bitters said. "He'll make house-calls."

"Okay," Kimball said. "I'll give the file to Jensen."

Bitters shifted his weight. "Okay."

"Okay."

A moment passed. Kimball glanced up. Bitters was still standing in front of her, fidgeting determinedly. "So," he said. "I just don't want you to think I'm." He stopped, chewing on his lower lip. "I can take the file."

Kimball cocked her head to one side. "Okay?"

He heaved a breath. "Yeah."

"Good," said Kimball. "Let me know if you run into any more trouble, all right?"

"Yeah," said Bitters again.

A massive crash made them both jump, followed by a wave of babbling voices and barking dogs out at the front desk.

"Dog-walkers are back," Bitters said.

Another crash, this one sounding a bit more expensive.

"Caboose is back," Bitters added.

Kimball closed the laptop, took a deep breath, and tried to think of whale noises and wide-open seas. "We'd better check it out."

The front desk was a disaster. The first feature that drew the eye was that one of the two glass doors leading to the outside world was at the moment not serving its function very well by virtue of being on the ground in a million pieces. No fewer than five dogs were leaping eagerly around the room while Caboose and Sarge chased them down. The dog-side volunteers were a low grumble of activity on one side of the room, quickly hushed when Kimball walked out from the cat side. She immediately caught Grif's eye and followed his guilty look to where the cat carriers were scattered over the glass.

"Grif," said Kimball. Even the dogs were calming down; her voice dropped into the silence like a stone.

"Okay, look," he said. "This is absolutely, totally, definitely not my fault. E-except for the part where I maybe didn't get the carriers all the way outside to rinse them off and uh. Maybe just stacked them by the door. A little. It was an honest mistake!"

"The puppies were really excited," Caboose said in a stage-whisper.

"Is it always like this?" whispered DuFresne to Donut, behind the front desk. Kimball saw Donut nod.

"Grif! You useless, insubordinate oaf!" Sarge, expertly pulling a particularly grumpy doberman to heel, spun to jab a finger into Grif's chest. "Can't you go one minute without destroying everything?"

Behind him, watching the proceedings with his back to the wall and arms crossed, Lopez muttered, "Si está dormido..."

Grif gave Sarge a half-assed shove. "Back off, old man! If you weren't playing fetch with half a tree and _throwing stuff at the door_ , this never would have happened!"

Simmons, the organization's de-facto financial consultant, was standing next to Grif with a look of worried calculation on his face.

Kimball turned to look at Sarge, who raised one finger, opened his mouth, and then wisely thought better of speaking. "Nobody's hurt?" she asked, and waited for the general grumble of confirmation. "Grif. You are gonna wash those carriers out by hand, and you are damn lucky I'm not making you use a toothbrush." Over Sarge's beginnings of a gloat, she added, "And you're cleaning up the glass, Sarge."

"I can help!" said Caboose, and ran back through the door to the dog side with his charges, plus Sarge's. The entire room gave a brief sigh of relief when he remembered to open the door before running through it.

Kimball clapped her hands. "Okay, people, back to work. We'll get this sorted out. Simmons?"

"Present!" Simmons was a reedy, nerdy-looking guy, a perpetual student not because of any particular love of his chosen field, whatever the hell that was, but because he got so nervous taking tests that he just kept putting them off, and had been doing so for the past eight or nine years, as far as she could tell. He was also, Kimball had discovered, surprisingly good at keeping the shelter's finances straight, as long as he wasn't under any particular stress. Like, say, the stress you feel in a room full of broken glass...

"C'mon to the back with me, let's talk finances." There wasn't actually a door between the back rooms and the front office, but a few feet of added distance made a huge difference when Sarge was booming orders to Grif.

Simmons followed her, a little nervously. "Uh," he said, "I don't know how much something like this costs, but we don't have much in the budget for it. Or, uh, anything. Haha. If someone gave us a dozen doors to sell, we'd probably still be in the red."

Kimball took a breath, rearranged some personal finances in her head, and resigned herself to editing an extra dozen research papers written by incoherent physics students every week for the next... ever. "I'll cover the door out-of-pocket, Simmons."

"What on earth is going on here, Miss Kimball?"

Kimball bristled at the new voice, felt her shoulders stiffen and fists clench instinctively. Great. With Jensen, the 'Miss' was a charmingly nervous little slip-up. With Donald Doyle, it was a calculated, condescending insult. And it figured that Doyle would choose today to actually be on time for his shift to supervise the dog side. She turned and plastered a pleasant smile on her face. "Doyle."

"I leave for one evening and the building is broken!" He made an inchoate gesture at the door. "I mean. What kind of business are we running?"

"For the seventeenth time, it's not a business, it's a non-profit," Kimball said, pleasant smile slipping. "Which you'd know if you'd offer more assistance in the grant application process."

"Or if you paid for anything out-of-pocket," Simmons muttered, so quiet that only Kimball could hear.

Doyle straightened up, trying to regain some of his offended dignity. "I understand that it's a difficult process for one who may not have the, ah, needed experience when it comes to transferring large sums of money."

"No large sums of money here," Simmons grumbled. He was rapidly becoming Kimball's favorite volunteer.

She took a deep breath, leaning against the employee mailboxes, and reminded herself that flinging Doyle through the other glass door was probably the impolitic thing to do, considering that his wealthy family occasionally deigned to make donations to the shelter. Bare-minimum stuff, judging by how much they had—Kimball had googled them out of curiosity and had gotten a pretty good ballpark figure—but still. Better than nothing. And he wasn't completely inept when it came to running the bureaucratic side of the dog adoptions...

"Okay," Kimball said. "Here's what's going to happen. I'm going to buy a new door. Sarge is cleaning up, nobody got hurt. We are a completely, one hundred percent professional organization."

Simmons was staring in horror over her shoulder. "Grif!" he screeched, his voice rising half an octave. "What did you do to my comic book? Is that chocolate? That was a _first edition_!"

"Miss Kimball," Doyle said, "I hardly think—"

"That's the whole damn problem, isn't it?" Kimball said, which was also probably impolitic, but all things considered, she didn't really give a damn.

"I did not come here to be insulted by you! Why you don't just sell the damn building off and cut your losses, I'll never know. The pitiful stipend you offer me to be your employee is so low as to be insulting! If the Doyles didn't have a long history of volunteerism, I wouldn't even be here!"

"Oh, and it must be so crushing to have to fall back on the six-figure monthly allowance your parents still give you."

"As a matter of—"

"Excuse me."

The voice was cool, crisp, and eminently professional. It was also entirely unfamiliar. Kimball took a breath and turned around and tried to picture exactly what a newcomer's first impression of the shelter would be.

Broken glass littering the ground. A missing door. Dusty cat carriers strewn everywhere, some with broken doors hanging off their hinges. Volunteers loitering in the front entrance. A former drill sergeant grumbling and trying to sweep up glass with a dustpan, occasionally letting out his anger by stomping it into finer dust. And, of course, two grown men wrestling on the front desk over a comic book.

Kimball pushed the hair out of her eyes and beamed. "Welcome to Purrfect Harmony Animal Shelter."

There were two newcomers, a man and a woman. The man was looking down at the broken glass with a furrowed brow, confusion plain on his face. The woman squared her shoulders. "Vanessa Kimball, I presume?"

"Oh," said Kimball, and let the overly bright smile drop off her face in favor of a more natural expression. "The new volunteers. You can call me Kimball. We tend to go by last names or nicknames here, so."

"Carolina, and this is my coworker Wash," said Carolina, without missing a beat.

"Um," said Wash, now staring at Grif, who was keeping a flailing Simmons away from him by virtue of one hand planted in his chest. "Okay," Wash said, and apparently decided to leave his commentary at that.

Kimball gathered her wits and gave them an appraising look. Both tall, athletic. Wash looked to fit in with the twenty-something crowd of regular volunteers, age-wise, but Carolina had to be well into her thirties. Carolina also had a massive bruise purpling across her forehead that she'd made no effort to hide; Kimball made a conscious decision not to stare. Not the usual college kids. Huh.

Kimball straightened, gestured helplessly at the mess all over the floor. "Well, you're not exactly seeing us at our best, here. You'll have to forgive me, I haven't had a chance to re-read your applications. What was it you were interested in doing?"

"I'd like to help out with the cats," Wash said, instantly. Carolina gave him a little sidelong glance, and Kimball thought she caught a glint of humor in it. "Uh. If I could."

"I think we could manage that," said Kimball. "I'll have Jensen and Bitters show you the ropes today. Carolina?"

"Wherever you need me," Carolina said. There was something strange about her posture, Kimball thought, but it wasn't until she beckoned them both over with her to the cat side and saw Carolina execute a perfect turn on her heel that she realized: Carolina was trying her damnedest not to stand at attention. Interesting.

Kimball smiled as Wash paused to stare in a window at one of the free-roam rooms. "What kind of hours are you available to work?"

Carolina came to rest—parade rest, almost—behind Wash, glancing briefly to the cats before looking Kimball straight in the eye. "We have flexible schedules. Five or six hours a week."

"That's great," Kimball said.

"We travel sometimes," Wash said, tapping on a window to get Bob The Cat's attention. "Might have to be on pretty short notice. I hope that's okay."

"Sure," Kimball said. "Whatever you can give us. In case you hadn't noticed, we're sort of floundering to keep afloat. Any little bit helps. C'mere, let me get you guys some nametags."

Carolina followed on her heels to the kitchen, Wash lagging behind a little and jogging to keep up. "So," Kimball said. "Either of you have any pets at home?"

"No," Carolina said. Her eyes twitched down, and for a moment she relaxed enough to let through a faintly self-deprecating smile. "I'm not very good with them. This is all new to me."

"That's fine," Kimball said, handing them each a sticker and a sharpie to write their names. "A shelter's actually a pretty great place to learn."

"I've got two," Wash said. "Cats."

"That's great," Kimball said.

Carolina turned to look at Wash, her expression unreadable, but there was definitely more than a little amusement in her voice. "You have _cats_? I... how?"

"Yeah," Wash said, defensively. "My neighbor takes care of them when I'm away."

"Since when do you have cats?"

"Since last year."

Carolina's brow furrowed for a moment, the smile leaving her face with unsettling abruptness. Wash looked down, his jaw clenching. It was such a ridiculously disproportionate response to a benign conversation that Kimball felt a flip-flop in her stomach, a strange, sinking feeling of something terribly not-right.

Carolina shook her head, breaking the odd moment, and stuck her nametag sticker onto her shirt. "We're good to start whenever."

Kimball stared at her, trying to recapture the strange sense of dread, but she was having trouble coming up with a reason for her bad feeling. Especially since Carolina had gamely drawn a little smiley-face next to her name. "Why don't you two go hang out in one of the free-roam rooms and get to know the cats a little? Wash, you can show Carolina how to brush knots out of a long-haired cat's fur. Princess Fluffypants is a real sweetie, good place to start. Brush is on a hook by the door. Just use hand sanitizer as you go from room to room."

"Princess Fluffypants," Carolina said, in a vaguely horrified sort of voice.

"Princess Fluffypants," Wash echoed, delighted.

"You'll do great," Kimball said. "I'll grab Jensen or Bitters and send them your way. Welcome aboard."

On the opposite end of the hallway, the door to the front desk swung open and Donut stuck his head in. "Hey, Kimball! Someone at the door!"

Kimball blinked, and left Wash and Carolina to the tender mercies of Her Imperial Highness of Fluffiness, jogging up to meet Donut. "What's up?"

He pointed. There was an older man standing at the front desk, both hands behind his back, staring at the clean-up proceedings with an air of faint amusement. He was unfamiliar, and therefore a potential adopter. _Finally_.

"Hello," she said, grinning big. "I'm sorry about the mess, it's been one of those days. Welcome to Purrfect Harmony! Are you looking to adopt, or just visiting?"

The man smiled. "Neither," he said. "I'm here to make you an offer."

Kimball's smile faltered. "An offer?"

"I understand your organization is in fairly dire financial straits," said the man. "I propose that your present business model is not sustainable. I own a great deal of property in the area, and I'd like to purchase this facility and the surrounding land." He extended a hand, smiling. "My name is Malcolm Hargrove. I hope we can do business."


	2. Perception

Lavernius Tucker drummed on his steering wheel, glowering at the red light that barred his path. "I swear it's a conspiracy. These lights are never red unless we're late. You sure you're using your magic powers to make it change?"

He glanced into the rearview mirror to see Junior, in the backseat, looking at him like he was something strange growing under his shoe.

"Oh, c'mon, you remember. You used to have that little magic song you'd sing and everything." Tucker cleared his throat to illustrate, and the light promptly changed. "Hah. See? It's all freaked out just thinking about it."

Junior groaned, writhing in his seat with embarrassment. "Come _on_ , Dad. I'm not a little kid anymore."

Tucker snorted. "Then why're you stuck in the back seat instead of up front? Oh yeah, because passenger-side airbags are unsafe for _little kids_ , that's why. Owned!"

Another peek in the rearview mirror earned him a smile, but Junior quickly tamped it down and slouched even further. "Dad, I'm second-oldest in my class this year. Lots of them haven't even turned eight yet."

Tucker, easing the car into the turn for the shelter, filed that note of pride in his voice away for future reference. Junior'd always spent a lot of time as the youngest and smallest in his class. Keeping him back a grade might just work out after all. "Yeah, that's super impressive. Good job being the king of the anthill. Vice-king. Wannabe king."

Junior kicked the back of his seat, unbuckling his seatbelt the second Tucker tapped on the brakes. "So what does that make you?"

"Damn, dude, what do I know about the monarchy?" Tucker said. "Oh, you're not letting me hold the door open for you, Your Puny Highness?"

Junior scowled at him in the way that, a couple years ago, would foretell a certain amount of shin-kicking. Now it mostly just meant a lot of brooding and snarky comments. Kids grew up so fast. Tucker thought about tousling his hair, then thought better of it at Junior's fierce expression. "Sheesh. Okay. You ready for our next foster-cats?"

Junior brightened immediately. "Yes! Do you know which ones we get? I want kittens!"

"They probably won't let us take any kittens," Tucker said, woefully, unpacking the carrier from the trunk. He had, of course, made extra-sure they were going to get kittens this time around. "They might be all out of kittens."

Junior's face scrunched up at the possibility of all-out-of-kittens, but he was still smiling, which meant his Dad-bullshit meter was getting to be better honed. A scary thought.

Donut beamed at them as they walked through the door. Well. Walked through where the door used to be. Tucker stopped and stared at the empty frame, propped up against a wall nearby.

"Well, if it isn't our favorite fosters!" Donut said, and Tucker glanced over to see Junior looking shyly at the ground. Junior liked Donut, maybe had a bit of a little-kid-crush, which meant he refused to speak more than two words to the guy. Which, of course, led Donut to double-down on trying to be nice, which compounded the problem. The whole situation was hilarious. "Here to pick up your latest charges? Oh, have you met Doc yet? I mean Dufresne, not Dr. Grey."

A gangly-looking guy in a purple hoodie waved from where he was shuffling papers next to Donut. "'Sup."

"Hey," Tucker said, and was relieved when Junior repeated the greeting unprompted. Having a polite kid made life like a million times easier. "What the hell's up with the door?"

Donut shrugged. "Caboose and Sarge. Compounded by Grif."

"Ahh," Tucker said. "Say no more. Seriously, don't tell me any more, I left the dog side to get away from that shit."

"And we miss you more and more every day," Doyle said, strolling by. No matter how much paperwork he was carrying, he always managed to be strolling. "Good morning, Tucker. And, ah, oh yes, Junior. Hello."

Tucker grinned. On a scale of one to ten when it came to being good with kids, Doyle was a clueless negative seventeen on a good day. "Hey, Doyle. Keeping it together?"

Doyle flushed, leaning toward the photocopier. "It's that Kimball woman. She has no sense! An excellent offer was brought to her attention today by a Mr. Malcolm Hargrove—he was going to buy the property and the surrounding area for _three times_ the price she originally paid for it! A prime development opportunity!" He made an elaborate gesture of frustration that ended with him accidentally hitting 'print' on the photocopier and cursing softly as page after page of blank paper spat out at him. "It seems so straightforward, and yet she refused him!"

"Well," Junior said, leaning up on the counter next to Tucker. He barely needed to stand on his tiptoes to do so; he was sprouting up like a weed. "What happens to the cats and dogs if you sell the shelter?"

Doyle paused. "Yes, uh, quite. We're not monsters, I'm sure we would... wait until the current crop were all adopted out. Yes, that seems eminently feasible."

"Okay," said Junior, "but what about the cats and dogs that need a shelter after it's closed?"

"Ah," Doyle said, looking helplessly at Tucker, who wasn't especially inclined to bail Doyle out on this one. "You see, I believe that it's very important to—"

"There you are!"

Tucker barely had time to register the new voice before someone grabbed him from behind and pulled him into an energetic hug. "Oof. Hey, Kai. Back from holidays so soon?"

She grinned, pulling back to turn him around and look him up and down. Her gaze lingered below the belt, too. Tucker preened. See, this was why he refused to believe skinny jeans were going out of style anytime soon.

Once her inspection was complete, she shrugged. "Yeah, it got kinda boring. Not enough hot people." She turned past Tucker to grin at Doyle, who looked about ready to melt into the ground. "Hey, Doyle, any hot people coming in today? And if not, can I go home early?" She planted a hand on Junior's head and leaned on him until he erupted into giggles and swatted her away.

"Ah, yes, I, uh—"

"Radio ad's coming out today, right?" said Tucker. "Should bring in some sexy, sexy potential pet-owners. I mean, who else listens to daytime radio? Hot people, that's who."

"Sweet," said Kai. "And Tucker, I know you're a _dirty traitor who abandoned us for the cat-side of diabolical evil_ —" And damn, her Sarge impression was getting better and better. "—but you should totally come say hi more often."

Tucker grinned, leaning back against the counter. "I will. Thanks, Kai."

She paused to look down at Junior, hands on her hips. "Hey, how's school?"

Junior made a face. "Boring."

She made a show of considering that answer, then shook her head. "Nah, you're a nerd like your dad. You love that stuff. Neeeerd."

Junior said, "Shut _up_ , Kai," but he was laughing, looked more relaxed than he had in days. Tucker resolved to have Kai over for dinner again sometime soon.

Kai slapped Tucker's ass on her way the door; Doyle flinched visibly. "Good lord," he said, bidding a hasty retreat back to the dog side with his stack of paperwork. "I don't know how I survive working with you people."

Lopez, walking by with an old computer tower under one arm, muttered, "Yo también."

"That's a good thought," Donut told him, "but I don't think we'll be able to make enough money with a bake sale."

Lopez cast him, Tucker, and the world at large a withering look and continued walking.

"That dude is intense," Tucker said.

"Oh man, speaking of intense," said Donut, and leaned in. "Did you hear about the new volunteers?"

Tucker figured he might as well settle in for a while and set the carrier down. "Donut, I just got in the door like five seconds ago. How could I possibly have heard about the new volunteers?"

"Oh. My. Goodness," Donut said, apparently ignoring Tucker entirely. "They are _so interesting_. Wash is the tall, chiseled, terrifying type. So's Carolina, only less tall and more terrifying. They're about fifty-fifty on the chiseled side of things, though."

"Chiseled, got it," Tucker said, reading the schedule over Donut's shoulder and only half-listening. Junior grabbed his hand and tugged, bouncing impatiently in place. "Look, Donut, there are kittens that have to be fostered and I think this one's gonna explode if I don't get him there."

"I'm serious!" Donut said. "There's something strange about them. Suspicious, even."

"Diabolical!" Sarge bellowed, shoving the door to the dog side of the shelter open with his shoulder. He had no fewer than five bags of dog food balanced on his shoulders. "Heard you talking, and I agree. There's something wrong with those two!"

"Oh, I don't know that there's anything wrong," Doc said, shifting nervously. "They seem perfectly nice."

Donut's chest swelled. "Well, _I_ think it's a job for Double-oh Donut, international man of mystery!"

"Okay," Tucker said, rapping his fingers on the counter and lifting up the carrier again. Maybe they'd get the hint if he started slowly backing away. "Wow. Slow day, huh?"

Sarge dumped the bags on the ground and dusted off his hands. "Well," he said. "I've seen slower." Then his eyes narrowed. "Don't think I haven't forgotten your betrayal! The cat side! I've never been so... so bamboozled in all my life!"

Tucker grinned nervously. "Hey, the kid likes cats more right now. What can I say?"

Junior turned to glare at him. "Don't put this on me! I love dogs! You said you switched because you wanted to get away from—mpph!"

Tucker managed to pull his hand away from Junior's mouth before he got bit, but only just. "Haha, well, you know, gotta... gotta go!"

With that smooth and eminently suave segue, he hustled Junior ahead of him through the cat-side door, cutting short Sarge's spluttering rejoinder. "Wow," Tucker said. "Weird day."

" _You're_ a weird day," Junior muttered, but his sullenness evaporated instantly at the sight of all the cats. "Oh sweet, a new long-haired one!" Pausing only to wash his hands with sanitizer, he shoved ahead of Tucker into the nearest free-roam room. With a sigh, Tucker set down his carrier in the hallway and followed.

Inside the room, a large, fluffy cat was rolling shamelessly on the floor while a nonplussed-looking woman with bright red hair poked nervously at it with a brush. Tucker's opening salvo of incredibly clever and foolproof pick-up lines died on his lips because, look, there were people who looked like they could crush you with one finger, which was totally Tucker's thing. And then there were people who looked like they could crush you with one finger and nobody would ever find the body, which, maybe not so much.

And this lady? She had muscles that could eat his own hard-earned muscles for breakfast. Couple those with a livid bruise across her forehead and an unnervingly piercing look in her bright, bright green eyes and, well. Instinctively, Tucker put a hand on Junior's shoulder to keep him from running right up to her and the cat. "Hi," he said. His voice absolutely, _definitely_ did not squeak.

She blinked, and he watched her make what looked like a conscious effort to put on a halfway-human attempt at a smile. When she'd managed that step, she turned so he could read her nametag: **Carolina :)**. Tucker had never been so terrified by a smiley face in his life. "Hi," she said. "Welcome to Purrfect Harmony. Is this your first time here?"

"No, we're always here!" Junior said, squirming in Tucker's grasp. "Let _go_ , Dad." When Tucker released his death-grip on Junior's shirt, Junior slid right down next to the cat, pressing his cheek against the floor and staring at it. It blinked back at him, unimpressed.

To Tucker's relief, Carolina merely watched the exchange with a little smile; when Junior picked the cat up and lifted it into his lap, she glanced to Tucker for a cue. "It's fine," Tucker said. "We're fosters for some of the cats here. He's weirdly good with the animals." Junior beamed as the cat settled itself more comfortably in his lap with a purring huff.

Carolina gave a self-deprecating little laugh, pushing to her feet. "He could probably teach me a thing or two. First day and I've already been scratched five times. I might have better luck with the dogs."

Tucker shrugged, spotted an old favorite—the venerable Bob the Cat—lurking nearby, and went over to scratch him under the chin. "Cats are weird. Takes some time to get used to them, same as dogs, but they're pretty cool." Okay, okay, maybe not quite as intimidating as he thought. Time for a softball. "Haha, hey, you know what else is pretty cool?"

Carolina raised one eyebrow. "No."

Tucker swallowed hard. "Me neither."

Junior leaned over the cat in his lap to smoosh its ears down against its head—which it suffered with a remarkably even temper—and then looked up at Carolina. "Hey, what happened to your head?"

" _Junior_ ," Tucker said. Junior blinked at him innocently, putting on his very best little-kid-who-doesn't-know-manners expression, which was total bullshit at his age but also... okay, yeah, Tucker was a little curious about that bruise, too.

"Uh, no, it's fine," Carolina said. "I just hit my head on a flowerpot."

Tucker stared at her. "A flowerpot."

"Yeah, one of those... hanging ones," she said. At his blank look, she made a little swinging gesture with her palm toward her forehead. "You know. Wasn't looking where I was going and ran right into it."

"Ow," Junior said.

"Pretty much," said Carolina.

Junior made a little disappointed sound when the cat finally got up off his lap and wandered over to its food dish, then pushed himself to his feet. "Did you have to go to the doctor? I hit my head when I was five and had to get stitches—"

" _Okay_ , kiddo," Tucker said, "time to go. Let's not bother Carolina any more, she's trying to work."

"It's fine," said Carolina. "Good to meet you, uh. Junior."

Junior solemnly shook hands with her, which, mad props to the little guy because Tucker was getting nowhere near Carolina's undoubtedly crushing grip with his delicate-yet-manly hands. "I'm Tucker," he said. "Lavernius, really. I go by Tucker here because everyone seems to do the last-name thing."

"Kimball mentioned that," said Carolina, and then paused, frowning. "So... Donut? That's his real name?"

"Dude, don't get me started with Donut, I have no fuckin' clue." Tucker shrugged, then tugged at Junior's sleeve. "C'mon, kiddo, let's go pick up our fosters."

"See you around," Carolina said, as they left. Her tone was light, but Tucker couldn't help feeling there was a veiled threat in there somewhere.

"You're being weird," Junior told him, as he bent to pick up the carrier again out in the hallway.

" _You're_ being weird," Tucker said, who felt it was his duty as a father to pass on his masterful skills in the art of debate.

"You called me 'kiddo'. You _never_ call me kiddo."

"I totally call you kiddo. All the time. Kiddo."

Junior stared at him. "Okay, Dad. Whatever."

Tucker pushed past him into the Cattery. Jensen immediately spotted him from the back of the room and waved. "Hey, Tucker! Your kittens are almost ready to go. Four of them, seven weeks old. Think you can handle that?"

Tucker grinned, shooting a sidelong glance at Junior, whose jaw had dropped to the floor. "Oh, I think we can manage. How's everything going?"

"Great! I mean, great. Really, really great. Kind of amazing!" Jensen said, with way the fuck more enthusiasm than this place ever warranted. On a hunch, Tucker moved up to look down the row of cages where she was standing. A very pretty girl in a hijab was busy checking the chart of one of the cats at the end of the line.

Tucker grinned at Jensen. Jensen broke into a visible sweat. "Aha!" he said. "Making some new friends at the start of the school year?"

"Tucker," she said, rubbing at her face.

"Wait, wait, I've got a perfect pick-up line for the occasion! You can have this one for free."

" _Tucker_."

"Hey baby, there's a lot of cute cats here, but wait'll you see _my_ p—"

"Okay, yes, Tucker! We're done here!" Jensen said, loudly enough that the girl at the end of the line turned back curiously toward them. "Go find Bitters to help with your fosters, I'm busy."

Tucker blinked. "Aw."

"Bitters. Now."

"You've been spending way too much time around Kimball," Tucker said. "Got the scary-teacher voice down to a science."

"Bye, Jensen," Junior said.

Jensen grinned at him. "Bye. Tell your dad he's being an ass."

"Hey Dad, you're being an—"

" _Language_ , buddy," Tucker said, and stuck his tongue out at Jensen as she turned away.

Bitters was in his usual hiding-from-work spot, perched on a cinderblock just outside the back door of the building. _Un_ usually, he was there with a stack of paperwork instead of his usual pack of cigarettes. "Hey, Bitters," Tucker said.

"I'm busy," Bitters said, without looking up. "Go bug Palomo."

"I'm gonna pretend for the sake of our friendship that you didn't just suggest I voluntarily have a conversation with Palomo," Tucker said.

Bitters snorted. "Smith, then. I know Kimball's out picking up more cat food." He glanced up. "Hey, Junior. Look, it's good to see you and all, but I really am busy with this messed-up application."

Tucker craned his neck, trying to read upside-down. "What's so messed-up about it?"

Bitters glanced at Junior again, then shrugged. "Nothing, I guess."

"Wow," Tucker said. "Okay, then. Good talk. This whole place is off the rails today."

"Tell me about it," Bitters muttered, already turning pages. "Some rich dude came in and tried to buy us out. Kimball wasn't taking that shit, told him to go fuck himself. Not in so many words, but close."

"Yeah, Doyle was pissed off about it. Which is probably a good sign."

Bitters snorted.

"Okay," Tucker said, when the silence went from awkward to oh-god-just-kill-me-now, and ushered Junior back inside.

"Mr. Tucker!"

Tucker let the cat carrier drop next to him and sat down on top of it. "Smith, I swear, if it turns out you're also being all weird and not-yourself today I'll just sink through the floor and go live in the sewers."

Smith blinked. "I, uh. No, that seems unlikely. I understand that you and Junior are fostering that orphaned litter of kittens, and I wanted to send you home with some reading material about how best to minimize their handling."

Tucker glanced up. "Oh, thank God. You're normal. Or what passes for normal, at least."

"Thank you," Smith said, completely stone-faced, and handed Tucker a massive binder. "Everything's in this pamplet."

"Pamphlet," Tucker said, and handed the binder off to Junior, who could barely lift it. "Right."

"Can we name them?" Junior asked.

"That's not usual protocol," Smith said. "Once they're old enough to be spayed and neutered, we'll be naming them and putting them up with the rest for adoption."

"We can give them names while they're staying with us, okay?" Tucker said, then held up a finger before Junior could speak. "No, we're not naming one of them Fartbutt."

"It's a good name," Junior grumbled.

Smith's face contorted with the effort of concealing his disapproving expression.

"So," Tucker said, "what's up with these new volunteers?"

"I don't want to speak ill of anyone behind their backs," Smith said.

"Oh-ho-ho, sweet! Gossip!" Tucker inched to the edge of the carrier, leaning forward. "C'mon, man, give me something to work with here. That Carolina chick is terrifying."

"She's got a healthy respect for rules and regulations," Smith said. "She's actually read the entire Standard Operating Procedures manual. Both of them have. Cover to cover."

Behind him, Palomo, who was doing a terrible job of pretending not to listen in while putting collars on a litter of kittens, said, "We have operating procedures?"

Smith stared at him with an expression of quiet horror.

"Okay, okay," Tucker said. "So they're a stickler for the rules. That's boring. You're pissed off at them, I can tell."

Smith shifted his weight awkwardly. "I have no quarrel with the new volunteers."

"He yelled at Wash," Palomo said, closing the cage door and wandering over. "Said he wasn't following the no-handling thingie. Where you're not supposed to pick up the kittens unless you have to."

"I didn't yell," Smith said, but there was a flush of color in his cheeks.

"He totally yelled," Palomo said, cheerfully. "Wash went all weird and quiet and just sort of slunk out with his tail between his legs. Not, I mean, not an actual tail or anything."

"Carolina hit her head on a flowerpot," Junior said, eager to contribute.

"Oh, that's such bullshit, she's totally lying," Tucker said. "Like that's a thing."

Smith furrowed his brow. "What, one of those hanging ones? They're a real hazard."

"Oh yeah," said Palomo. "I did that the other day. They'll get you if you're not paying attention."

Tucker stared from one to the other. "Okay," he said. "So I guess it's a thing. Look, can you guys keep an eye on Junior for a sec, get him set up with the kittens? I'm gonna go take a leak."

"I," Palomo announced, as Tucker turned his back, "think it would be, uh, kind of funny? To give the kittens ridiculous names? I mean, officially."

"Fartbutt," Junior said, with great solemnity.

"Oh man, that's perfect!"

Tucker sighed and pushed his way out of the Cattery, muttering under his breath, "I fucking _hate_ that guy."

The front desk was mercifully quiet when Tucker walked by to the bathroom—Donut was apparently in the back doing some filing, judging by the cheerful whistling. Thank fuck. Tucker didn't think he could take another bizarre interaction before lunch.

He reached out for the bathroom door. It flew open and hit him in the face.

"Okay, what the _fuck_!" he yelped, jumping back and rubbing at his nose.

The guy who'd just opened the door stared at him for a second in a way that immediately reminded Tucker of Carolina, that deer-in-headlights look like the dude was trying to remember how to react to some bizarre new stimulus. Then his expression shifted toward concern, and he backed up a step, half-retreating into the bathroom. "Are you okay? Sorry, I wasn't paying attention."

"Well, no shit, Sherlock," Tucker grumbled. "My nose bleeding?"

The guy stared at him. "What?"

"My nose. Is there blood coming out of my nose?" Tucker winced, pinching at the bridge. "I think you broke my nose!"

"I, uh. It looks fine, actually. The door really didn't hit you that hard."

"No thanks to you!"

"I... wait, what?"

Tucker rubbed at his nose again and sniffed pitifully. "Dude, a face like this, a perfect profile, you can't be too careful. This is the real money-maker."

"If you say so," the guy said. The door was open just wide enough that Tucker could read the neatly printed **Wash** on his nametag.

"Oh dude, you're the other weird new volunteer!"

Wash raised an eyebrow. "Weird?"

Tucker cocked his head to one side, broken and tragically maimed nose temporarily forgotten. It was easy to get distracted by the ridiculous musculature and the faint scar that ran down the side of his neck, but the guy's hair was friggin' hilarious. His roots were a couple shades darker brown than his skin, the rest dyed an almost fluorescent white-blond. "Dude, you realize frosted tips went out in the 90s, right?"

Wash blinked. "What?"

"I'm not saying that's what makes you weird, but I am saying it probably doesn't help if you go around looking like a boy-band reject." Tucker belatedly held out a hand. "Tucker. I made fun of your hair as payback for the nose thing, so now we're square."

Wash glanced down for a second before taking his hand in a cautious grip and pulling away almost immediately. "Wash. Pleased to, uh. Meet you. Sorry again. And my hair looks fine."

"Uh-huh. Do you always try to knock new acquaintances the fuck out?" Tucker said, remembering to rub pitifully at his nose again for effect.

"You'd be surprised," Wash muttered, and added, "I'll get out of your way."

When Tucker was done pissing, he took a little time to inspect the damage to his face in the mirror. Wash was right, it looked like it probably wasn't even going to bruise. Fucker.

He paused before going back out to retrieve Junior, leaning on the sink. Seriously, though. There was something really fucking wrong with these people. He knew Kimball was pretty lax with the volunteer apps, but come on. On the scale of shady characters, these two had to be at least former military. Maybe black ops.

He glowered at himself in the mirror and shook his head. "Bullshit," he said, slowly and firmly. He'd met plenty of weirdos over the years who'd turned out to be perfectly nice people. Maybe Carolina and Wash just, like, co-owned a bed and breakfast, gardened frequently—hence the flowerpot incident—and wanted to give back to the community with a little volunteerism. Yeah.

Uh-huh. Sure. And maybe Donut really was Secret Agent Double-Oh Donut in his spare time.

Anyway, it was _so_ not his problem. His problem was four kittens and a son who would no doubt be bouncing off the walls all day, and that was about as much as he was equipped to handle.

He washed his hands and headed back over to the cat side to retrieve Junior and his new charges. As he passed one of the free-roam rooms, the one where the older kittens were housed, he froze, staring through the window.

Wash was lying on the floor in the middle of the room. Two kittens were sitting on his chest, pawing suspiciously at his shirt buttons. One was gnawing on his shoelace. One was licking the tip of his ear. A fifth was kneading his shoulder.

And Wash—terrifying, mysterious, tough-guy Wash—was convulsing with breathless, giggly, _genuine_ laughter.


	3. Taper

"Just a bit closer," Kimball said. "Let her come to you." When Jensen cautiously inched her hand forward, she added, "Not like you're grabbing, she knows what that motion means. Keep the wrist loose and she'll be curious enough to come check it out. There you go."

The terrified little kitten—still unnamed, but Tucker's kid and Palomo had each put in a vote for 'Fartbutt'—unfolded herself slightly from where she was hidden under one of the food carts, and stared up with huge eyes at Jensen and Kimball. They'd been trying to coax her out for the five minutes since she'd squirmed out of Jensen's hands. Sometimes Kimball swore kittens were a liquid, considering how easily they managed to ooze themselves into the smallest spaces.

"It's okay, just give her a second. _Relax_ , Jensen, you're almost as nervous as she is. You're a lot bigger, and kittens are resilient." Kimball cleared her throat, then coughed twice. The kitten flinched with each sharp sound. "It'd be great if you could get her to come to you, but if you need to just grab her or scruff her, it's not the end of the world."

Jensen nodded, pushing back her glasses and flattening down to lie on her stomach, her posture radiating worry and determination. The kitten stared at her, unimpressed.

"Don't forget to blink. Only thing worse than a giant monster trying to pick you up is a giant monster glaring at you the whole time." Kimball coughed again, then sniffed in lieu of wiping her nose on her sleeve.

Jensen sighed when the kitten shied away from her hand again. "Hey, are you feeling okay?"

Kimball blinked, swallowed down an itch in her throat. Her ears popped. "Fine. Why?"

That prompted Jensen to look at her, raising an eyebrow.

"Okay, okay, so I've got a cold," Kimball said, raising her hands. "It happens."

"Tell me about it," Jensen said. "You know, there's some really nasty stuff going around. One of my friends was in the hospital last week. Dehydration I guess? Seems to be hitting people pretty hard." The kitten poked her head out from under the cart, nose twitching, eyes fixed on Jensen's casually outstretched hand. At the motion, Jensen's attention immediately snapped back to her, and she shied away again. "C'mon, baby, it's okay."

"Regular colds have been going around too," Kimball said, feeling a vague need to make excuses for her body's failings. "Plenty of people have been regular levels of sick. Like me."

"I think Carolina's sick, too," Jensen said. "She looked kind of, I don't know, pale when she came in today. Sweaty."

Kimball cleared her throat, leaning back to try to look through the hall to where Carolina was working. "Really? That's not good. She shouldn't be here. Maybe I should send her home."

Another raised eyebrow from Jensen. Those eyebrows were downright eloquent.

"Yes, all right." Kimball raised a hand in surrender. "I'll go home after this, okay? You do a great job taking over when I'm not here."

Jensen shifted uncomfortably; the kitten ducked her head back under the cart, but kept watching, wary. "Um," she said. "I, um. On that topic. Can I ask you something?"

"Sure," said Kimball, crossing her arms in a would-be casual motion that was partly to ward off the chill she'd apparently brought in with her from the outside, a chill that had absolutely _nothing_ to do with what was undoubtedly a minor head cold. At worst. "You know, if I have a fever I'm pretty sure I'm going to give super great advice right now. Fevers always seem to hit me hard. I talk too much. Once I passed out a couple years ago when I..." She paused, shut her mouth, opened it again, and said, "There's a possibility I might have a fever."

"Sorry," Jensen said. "I didn't want to bother you if—"

"It's fine, Jensen. What's on your mind?"

"I don't think I want to be an engineer," Jensen said, all in one breath. The kitten blinked at her. She blinked back. "I think I want to do something like this. I mean, actually, not just volunteering? But I don't know how to tell my parents."

Kimball shrugged. "It's not their life. You're an adult." She squinted at Jensen. "You are an adult, right?"

"I'm twenty-two."

"Jesus, you're all kids," Kimball said. "Okay, you're sort of an adult. Tell them. Give them a little credit for critical thought. If they say something ass-backwards, assume they're probably saying it out of concern for you. Ignore their advice if you need to. Maybe move forward on your own terms without consulting them."

Jensen frowned. "So... you're saying I need to tell them, but maybe don't tell them, but if I do tell them, listen to what they have to say, except for when I ignore them?"

Kimball felt a resurgence of the morning's attack of nausea at the prospect of unraveling that sentence. "To be fair, it sounded better in my head."

"You should really go home," Jensen said, reaching across the gap to scratch behind the kitten's ear. "You look terrible."

"I'm fine," Kimball said, and sneezed so loudly that the kitten bolted straight out across the floor to wedge herself under a row of vacant cages on the other side of the room.

Jensen's eyebrows had a lot to say.

"Well," Kimball said, vaguely, "my work here is done."

Leaving Jensen to her charge, Kimball pushed out the door and into the hallway, where Grif was leaning against a wall. She blinked at him a couple of times just to make sure he wasn't a fever-induced hallucination. "Grif. I thought you hated cats! What the hell are you doing back here?"

He glared at her. "Keeping you from making the worst mistake of your life!"

Kimball blinked again, hopefully, but Grif was still there when she opened her eyes. "I'm going home," she said. "I'm sick."

"Look," said Grif, "it'll only take a second."

Kimball sighed, and waved for him to follow her. Another quick walk around the Cattery wouldn't be a bad idea before she left, anyway. "If this is about how I should take Hargrove's offer, I'm out."

Grif stopped in his tracks. "What the fuck. You seriously think I'm here to defend _Hargrove_?"

Kimball turned to face him, leaning against a doorway and hugging herself. "Sorry. Doyle's been after me, so I thought maybe you were also—"

"No way! Hargrove's a dick! Even Caboose is getting sick of the guy. Hargrove's been coming by like fifteen times a week and being a creepy asshole. Especially when you're not around."

"Oh, good," Kimball said. "He's coming by when I'm gone. Just what I wanted to hear."

"He even managed to piss off _Donut_ by making some snide comment about how that Dufresne guy is always at the front desk instead of helping Grey and Smith. Donut! Do you have any idea how hard it is to make Donut hate you? The dude's a serious dick."

Kimball held up a hand. "I'm sorry I doubted you, Grif."

"Well, good," Grif said, jamming his hands in his pockets. "I'm not petty, you know."

"Again, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to imply you were petty. What was it you wanted to talk to me about?"

Grif paused, then said, "You gotta fire Matthews because I don't like him."

Kimball rubbed her face with her hand and breathed slowly through her mouth. "Grif..."

"The kid looks up to me! He keeps coming over to the dog side to tell me how much he appreciates my leadership! What the fuck is that all about?"

"You poor soul," Kimball said. "Grif, c'mon, we've been over this. Setting aside his somewhat questionable taste in authority figures, Matthews is a... sort of competent volunteer. We need Matthews. We need everyone we can get."

"And furthermore," Grif said, gesturing wildly, "you're working Bitters too hard! He's a maverick! Total badass! He needs to be out doing his thing, like, smoking in the back alley or something, not poring for hours over friggin' paperwork!"

That brought Kimball up short. "Sorry?"

"Bitters," Grif said. "You know, short black kid with a bad haircut and a worse attitude? Always living life on the edge?"

Kimball stared. "Are you describing a coworker or pitching a new TV show?"

"You're working him too hard!"

"I'm not saying I wouldn't pick it up for a pilot episode at least."

" _Kimball_."

Kimball sighed, swallowing past another tickle in her throat. "Grif. Listen. I'm not giving Bitters any extra work. I didn't know he was working so hard, but he does have a couple applications on the go right now. One of them is a little sensitive. Adopting an older cat to an elderly woman who's only been given a few years to live. The cat she wanted—Max—is at the vet again, so he's had to reevaluate the options. I can understand that he'd be spending a little extra time on it."

Grif lapsed into silence for a moment, tapping his lips with one finger, then said, "So you're telling me that not only is Bitters a total maverick, he's a total maverick with a _heart of gold_?"

With a momentary glare at the ceiling and a valiant attempt to remember the first track of Donut's _**Sounds of Essences of Lifetimes of Relaxation**_ CD, Kimball said, "Sure."

Grif nodded, slowly. "I can respect that."

Kimball rubbed at her arms; goosebumps were rising despite the 70-degree reading on the thermostat right in front of her. "I'm so glad. Is that it?"

Grif ducked his head down to meet her gaze. "Jeez, lady, you really don't look so good."

" _Goodbye_ , Grif." Before he could bring up any further grievances, or realize that she hadn't actually addressed the thing with Matthews, Kimball pushed through the door to the Cattery and started down the first row of cages, making her end-of-shift rounds.

Wash was standing at the end of the first row, reaching into a cage to stroke Marbles, a skittish little cat who'd been brought in with a broken leg. He jumped when Kimball announced her approach by sneezing. "Wow, uh. Bless you. Hi."

"Hi, Wash. How's she doing?"

"She's been making a lot of progress," Wash said, but he had a certain strained tone to his voice that Kimball had learned to recognize over the course of the three weeks they'd been working together. In this case, 'a lot of progress' probably meant that Marbles would still snarl and scratch at anyone who wasn't Wash, but at least she'd stopped biting.

"That's great," Kimball said. "The intake crew were a little worried about her."

Marbles glared balefully at Kimball. Wash rubbed her furry cheeks, which somewhat diminished the effect of her continuous, low-pitched growling. "She doesn't like being petted anywhere below the neck, and obviously we shouldn't take her out of the cage unless it's absolutely necessary. But she's really starting to calm down. Probably. I mean, definitely."

"You're doing great with her, Wash," Kimball said. "You're a natural."

"Oh, no," Wash said. "I've just spent a lot of time with my cats."

"Then you're obviously a great owner," Kimball said, more firmly. She'd noticed that both Wash and Carolina could dodge praise like nobody's business. She'd just have to start lobbing fastballs. "We're really lucky to have you."

Wash made a noncommittal noise, turning away to look at Marbles.

Kimball leaned against the next cage over, crossing her arms and stifling a cough, trying not to wake up the pile of sleeping kittens behind the bars. "You know," she said, "I'd appreciate it if you could pass some of your expertise on to Carolina. She tries very hard, don't get me wrong, but it tends to fall flat because she's so tense around the cats. Do you think she'd do better with the dogs?"

Wash shrugged. "I'm sorry, I don't know that I can really answer that question. We work together. I don't know a whole lot about her, you know, personally."

"Oh," said Kimball. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to pry." Which was, of course, complete bullshit—after three weeks of mere crumbs of information about her two newest and most bizarre volunteers, her curiosity was far from sated. Besides, a fever was a great excuse to start getting nosy. She sniffled, pointedly. "I'm a little out of it today, got a fever, you know, I might just be rambling."

"Sorry you're under the weather," Wash said. "I heard there's something nasty going around."

"Just a cold," Kimball said. "You know, Carolina's really been pretty tight-lipped since you started here. I don't even know how long you two have been working together."

Wash said, "We've been working together a few years, on and off." His voice was still pleasant, his tone relaxed, but there was a new tension in his shoulders. Marbles must've sensed the shift, too, because she immediately hissed and swatted at him. Wash jerked back. "Ow."

Kimball straightened up. "She nailed you?"

Wash was staring at the blood on his hand. "No, we're just coworkers," he said, distractedly, then seemed to replay the conversation in his head. "Oh. Uh. Yes. Um. Nailed me as in. Marbles scratched me. Uh." He winced. "Please forget I said that first thing."

With a laugh, Kimball backed up to give him a clear route to the kitchen and its first-aid kid. "Already wiped from my mind. You've clearly been spending too much time around Tucker."

"You're probably right." Wash glanced back at Marbles, shrugged, then walked past Kimball and out the door.

"Someone get scratched?" Dr. Grey called.

Kimball, by now feeling a bit like she was pinballing through a fuzzy haze of confusing people with strange problems, followed her voice to the back of the room, where Grey was mixing some sort of medication in with a bowl of wet food. The smell made Kimball's stomach lurch, but she swallowed hard and forced up a smile. "Wash just got swatted."

"No bites?"

"No bites," Kimball said, leaning heavily against the wall.

"Good," said Grey. "I mean, well. It's kind of neat how many things can go wrong with a cat bite. But most people probably aren't so keen on necrotic decay!" She grinned for a moment, then frowned thoughtfully, stirring the food with a nauseating _glorp_. "Hey, have you seen Carolina today? She looked pretty bad. Worse than you, I mean."

"Thanks, I think." Kimball narrowed her eyes. "Worse how?"

Grey shrugged. "I'm better with animals that walk on four legs. If she were a cat, I'd take her to the vet right away. Which would be me! So I guess I'd take her to me. Just, you know, all the warning signs. Pale, dull eyes, dry nose, unkempt coat."

Translating mentally from cat to human, Kimball said, "It sounds like she's got whatever I've got. I'm heading out, so I'll send her home as well. Jensen can hold down the fort while I'm gone."

"Good luck," Grey said. "I asked her to let me take her blood pressure as an intellectual exercise—she mentioned she ran ten miles before coming in the other day, casual as anything—and she suddenly decided she needed to go walk every dog right away. She doesn't even work for the dog side! I think she may have been avoiding me."

"Very suspicious," Kimball said. "I can't imagine someone avoiding you."

"You're actually not that good with sarcasm," Grey said, cheerfulness undiminished. "A little heavy-handed."

"I'll do my best to work on that."

"That's more like it!" She smiled, a little less blindingly bright. "Go home, Kimball. We've got this under control."

Kimball turned to cough into the crook of her arm. "I'll grab Carolina and go. G'night, Doc."

"Oh, we're calling the new kid Doc. You know, Dufresne? We think he could use the self-esteem boost. I'm just Grey now, I guess!"

"G'night, _Grey_." Kimball waved, realized how ridiculous it looked to be waving to someone standing four feet in front of her, turned on her heel, and wobbled back toward the door.

By the time she found Carolina in one of the meet-and-greet rooms, her head was pounding out an uneven rhythm and the air around her face felt white-hot. A minor cold. Right.

Carolina appeared to be deeply engaged in glaring at a table at the back of the room with her arms folded. Kimball opened the door a crack. "You got a cat back there?"

"Yeah. You should come in or stay out," Carolina said. Her voice was strained. "The people looking at him left half an hour ago, and I can't get him back in his cage."

Which was pretty much more than she'd spoken to Kimball in the last three weeks combined, so Kimball decided to take it as an invitation and pushed into the room, closing the door behind her. She ducked a little to look under the table. A wide-eyed tabby stared back. "Is that Murray?"

"I guess," said Carolina. "Right now he's just my mortal enemy."

"Ah. One of those." Cautiously, Kimball crouched down, glancing up as she did so to get a better look at Carolina. Grey's assessment wasn't far off. Her hair was falling out of its habitual ponytail, plastered to her forehead by sweat. Her face was wan, dark circles standing out under her eyes. Even as Kimball watched, Carolina gave a convulsive, full-body shudder. Yeah, forget subtlety. "Are you okay?"

Carolina blinked. "Sorry?"

"You don't look so good."

"I'm fine," Carolina said, and added, as an afterthought, "thanks. You think you can get him?"

"Well, yeah," said Kimball. She held one hand out, and Murray trotted out from under the table for a scratch under the chin, purring the whole time. "He's pretty much the friendliest cat we've got. Why didn't you just bend down and pick him up in the first place?"

Carolina paused, her brow furrowed, then bent strangely at the waist with her back held rigid. The pose was so bizarre that, when she reached out to grab Murray, her shirt rode up a little. Kimball flinched at the sight of the massive bright-red bruise that was exposed along her midsection. " _Jesus_ , Carolina. Are you hurt?"

"I'm fine," said Carolina, and straightened up with Murray purring obliviously in her arms. She shifted him awkwardly in her grasp. "Let's go."

"Seriously," said Kimball, scooping Murray out of Carolina's arms, "that looks terrible, and you're obviously in pain. Have you been to see a doctor at least? What the hell happened?"

Carolina looked at her with such genuine bafflement that Kimball had to take a moment to seriously assess whether she'd accidentally said anything that was over the line. Then Carolina said, "It's nothing. I got hit by a car last night as I was crossing the street."

Kimball dropped Murray on the ground; he made a beeline for the table again. "You were _hit_ by a _car_?"

Carolina shrugged. She showed no expression of pain at the motion, but Kimball flinched for her. "Just walking through the grocery store parking lot, wasn't looking where I was going, car knocked me down and drove off. It's stiff, but not too bad."

Kimball waved her hands wordlessly for a moment. "You know you can call in sick for something like that, right? This is a _volunteer_ position, and I think pretty much anyone would understand you staying home after something like that. Or, you know, going to see a doctor!" She leaned forward. "You're pale and sweating. I'm pretty sure that's not a good sign when you're bleeding internally."

"It's a bruise."

"Which is defined as internal bleeding!"

"You needed me here."

Kimball sputtered, grabbing at the table to steady herself. She had to actually take a moment to process the absurdity of that statement. "Carolina. I'm being serious. Go to the emergency room and let them fuss over you for a few hours. We don't need you here that badly."

Carolina watched her for a moment, then leaned back against the desk, breathing hard. Unselfconsciously, she hiked up her shirt again, staring down at the bruise. Kimball drew in a breath; it extended all the way along her side and up under the edge of her bra, purpling more dramatically across her hipbone. It looked like something out of a damn movie.

"Yeah. That's not good," Kimball said. Her heart was slamming in her ribs. "Do you want me to give you a ride to the ER?"

"I'm fine," Carolina said, frowning at the bruise like it was a personal affront and pushing down her shirt, straightening up stiffly. "I'll go myself. We should get Murray back in his cage."

"I'll do it," Kimball said. "Jesus. I'll do it." She bent down quickly to reach for Murray, and immediately had to rest a hand on the floor for balance as her head spun. Apparently this minor head cold had impeccable timing, because her vision was actually starting to go dark at the edges, and her stomach roiled uncomfortably. She settled back on her haunches, blowing out a shaky breath of air. Murray blinked at her.

A cool hand came down to rest firmly on the back of her neck. "You're burning up," said Carolina. Kimball stayed perfectly still, barely daring to breathe, trying very hard not to lean too obviously into the touch. When Carolina drew back after a moment, the absence made her shiver. "All right. I'm going to give you a ride home on my way to the ER."

"Okay," said Kimball, groggily, and sniffled. "Yeah, I... I probably shouldn't be driving." She reached out and grabbed Murray, who cuddled up to her and purred like a motor as she stumbled to her feet. "Neither should you."

Carolina shrugged; again, Kimball winced for her. "I'll take my chances. I'll meet you outside. You can come pick up your car later. Okay?"

Kimball didn't remember much of the trip home; when she got there, her thermometer cheerfully proclaimed that she had a fever of 103 degrees. She made herself down a gallon of Gatorade and a couple Tylenol, cuddled up on the couch with a pillow and blanket, and watched terrible reality shows on Netflix until the world went hazy and warm.

At some point, she pushed back to semi-consciousness with a lingering, vague sense of embarrassment. She'd been... she'd been dreaming, probably, about that glimpse of skin under Carolina's shirt, about the muscles defined beneath it and how they'd feel shifting under her hands. She pressed the side of her face into the pillow until it was hot, until it felt like it was on fire, and dreamed a cool touch on the back of her neck.

She woke up in the middle of the night with her legs tangled in the blanket, cold and unpleasantly damp with sweat, but the fever had broken. Hazy, she stood in the shower under lukewarm water until her downstairs neighbor banged on the door and politely reminded her in a heartfelt crescendo that it was three in the damn morning and the damn pipes squealed and some people had to get some damn sleep, and then she climbed into pyjamas and fell into bed, staring at the ceiling and trying to cough loudly enough to be heard one floor down.

Around five in the morning, she got up, found her laptop, and opened the archived applications folder. Most of the volunteer applications really did go unread at any level of detail—they were desperate for more people, after all—but it was probably time to rectify that.

Carolina and Wash's applications looked fine, honestly. A little more meticulous than most, but with enough gaps in the data to be, well. Realistic. Neither had provided a full name, but that wasn't necessarily too weird—the form didn't have separate first- and last-name columns, and people sometimes forgetfully just threw in their first or last name and left the other out. There was a whole lot written down about their respective love of animals, which was probably exaggerated on Carolina's part but seemed sincere enough for Wash.

The "Emergency Contact" column caught Kimball's interest. Only a phone number. No name. She'd just finished idly typing the number into a Google search when her phone, sitting on the bedside table, started vibrating.

She froze, listening to the phone buzz. An alarm? Not likely at 5:23 in the morning. Between the early hour and the lingering haze of the fever, the sound was surreally loud. She glanced at the call display. Paused. Read it again. Matched it, digit for digit, with the number she'd just googled.

She picked up the phone, and had to clear her throat before making a sound. "Hello?"

A soft voice, amiable and polite, said, "Good morning. May I speak to Vanessa Kimball, please?"

Kimball cleared her throat again, coughed, and said, "Speaking."

"I apologize for calling so early," the man said. "I wanted to assuage any worries you might have had based on yesterday's... incident."

"Incident," Kimball echoed. "Sorry, I don't really—"

"Carolina is in the hospital. They've prescribed painkillers and will be keeping her one more day for observation, and then they will be releasing her. She should be back at the shelter before too long."

Kimball exhaled relief, leaning back in her chair and rubbing her eyes. "I'm glad she'll be okay. Thank you so much for calling. Are you—no, I'm sorry, who is this?"

"I work with Carolina," the man said. "My name is Price. She's told me on several occasions how much she enjoys working at the shelter. She tells me it's extremely... rewarding."

"Really. She doesn't strike me as the type of person to get chatty at work."

A pause. "I'm told that people find me easy to talk to. In any case, I should start my day, and by the sound of things, Ms. Kimball, you should get some rest."

"I will," Kimball said. "Thank you again for calling." She paused, then added, "Listen, just out of curiosity, what exactly is it you do?" She waited a moment for a reply, but Price had already hung up.

She stared at her phone for a moment, then set it on the desk and ran a few searches on the number. Did some digging in local databases, cross-referencing with the name 'Price'. No results.

It wasn't until she'd burrowed back into bed, pressing her face against the blessedly cool pillows, that she remembered one very important, very pertinent detail about the drive from the shelter to her home.

She'd never actually told Carolina her address.


	4. Percussion

Wash took a kitten from Tucker's carrier, depositing it carefully into a cage amid a series of indignant mews. They'd been unloading the cats in companionable silence until now, which was fantastic as far as Tucker was concerned, because at least it meant Wash wasn't making the same damn—

"So how's the nose?"

—the same damn joke. Tucker scowled, but the effect was spoiled when he had to adjust his grip on the carrier as the kittens inside moved around. They were way bigger than when he and Junior had brought them home the first time, promoted from scrawny little rags of fluff to pudgy medium-sized spheres of fluff. "Ha-ha. You know, that just gets funnier every time you say it. Pro tip, Wash: comedy stops being funny when you've made the same joke almost every day for over a month. In fact, it may have stopped being funny when you opened a bathroom door into my face."

"Pretty sure it's still funny," Wash said, blandly. With a quick glance around for Smith's disapproving eye, he took a moment to cuddle one of the kittens close to his chest before depositing him with his brothers in the cage. "Besides, I'm pretty sure there's a point where you'll come back around to finding it funny again. I will weather your disapproval as a necessary sacrifice for that day."

"Uh-huh." Placing the carrier on the ground, Tucker pulled out the last kitten himself. "You have fun with that."

"Oh, I will." Wash closed the cage door behind the last kitten and cocked his head to one side, watching them pad cautiously around their new environment. "How's Junior taking this? It's gotta be kinda hard, bringing them in every Friday night and knowing some of them might be going to new homes before you pick them up on Monday."

Tucker shrugged. "Don't get me wrong, the little guy will be heartbroken when they're gone, but last time he was here, Jensen introduced him to the law of conservation of kittens: when one kitten leaves you get a new one to replace it. Right now I think he's more excited about meeting new kittens than giving up the old ones."

"Hah," Wash said. "Conservation of kittens. That's cute."

"Nerd."

Wash snorted. "Says the guy who was judging my Dirty Bomb loadouts last time we played."

Tucker grinned, pushing a stuffed mouse toy in through the bars of the cage and watching the kittens descend upon it with terrible purpose. "You never have a healer on your squad, man! What the fuck!"

"Don't need a healer."

Tucker paused to consider all the times Wash's name had topped the leaderboard, with appallingly good K/D spreads. "Oh, sure, _you_ don't. Maybe the rest of the team kinda does? You're not much of a team player, man." He reached in between the bars to drag the mouse away from the biggest kitten and hand it off to the littlest one for a bit.

"Being good at the game helps bring the whole team up to my level," says Wash, watching the kittens tackle each other with dramatic battle-cries along the lines of _mewww_.

Knowing full well he shouldn't encourage the guy, Tucker couldn't quite stifle a laugh. "Is that your version of 'git gud'?"

Wash shrugged, a smile playing over his face. "I'm just saying."

"Uh-huh." Tucker straightened up, trying to stretch a kink out of his back—he hadn't been sleeping well because of midterms and the whole thing with Junior, which meant he'd been sleeping like a fuckin' pretzel and everything ached. "Hey, is Kimball seriously still out?"

"Yeah," said Wash. "You missed her the last day she was here, she looked terrible. I'm not surprised."

"She called me yesterday to say she'd probably be out through the weekend and wouldn't be here to help me with the kittens, but I didn't really believe her. I've worked with her for a couple years here and I've never seen her take time off like that. She sounded pretty out of it."

In fact, the phone call had been all kinds of weird. Kimball kept asking about how Junior was adjusting to being held back a grade, which was nice but really just sorta felt like she was stalling, trying to work up to saying something else. If Kimball hadn't made it abundantly clear that she had zero interest in dating dudes, he'd have suspected her of awkwardly trying to ask him out. But... no, seriously, Kimball wasn't the sort of person to beat around the bush (bow-chicka?). If she had a concern, she came right out and said it—just ask Doyle. So what the fuck had she been dancing around saying?

"Carolina's still away too," Wash added. "She's been out of the hospital for a few days, but she's taking a little time off."

"Yeah, what the fuck? First there's rogue potted plants, then she got hit by a car? That's messed up, dude."

Wash hummed agreement, opening the next cage over to check on the food and water. "So is Junior excited about Halloween next week?"

Tucker beamed. "He is _so pumped_. Free candy, it's a weekend so he doesn't have school the next day to get in the way of the candy coma, _and_ we found him a kickass Halo costume. One of those alien dudes, you know?"

Wash blinked. "A Grunt?"

"Come _on_ , I'm not an asshole."

Wash grinned. "An Elite?"

"Yeah, that's the one. Looks really cool considering it's, like, made out of felt or something." Tucker tapped on the cage bars to catch the kittens' attention and break up a fight. "Hey, uh. Are you doing anything this evening?"

Wash froze, like came to a complete dead stop, and Tucker replayed the sentence in his head, backpedalling frantically. "Oh, dude, wait, no, not like that. I mean, not that there's anything. And if you wanted to. Uh. I mean, Junior's having a rough time at school lately, and he's not really listening to me right now. I'm saying, maybe you could come with me to pick him up for school and we could all grab some food. He thinks you're cool, and you might have, you know, stuff to say he hasn't been hearing from me lately."

Wash crossed his arms, cocking his head to one side. "He thinks I'm cool?"

"You've got a kickass scar on your neck and, like, big enough muscles that they've developed sentience and probably call each other 'bro' at the gym. You like cats. Of course he thinks you're cool."

Wash was making a visible effort to tamp down a smile. "What kind of problems is he having at school? Wasn't the theory that keeping him back a grade would cut down on the bullying?"

"Yeah, but now he's picking fights with the littler kids because he knows he can win." Tucker grimaced. "Look, dude, I was all ready to cheer him on when he was punching the bullies, but I'm not really sure where to go if he's the one doing the bullying."

"I'm happy to help if I can, Tucker, but I'm seriously not that good with kids."

"Trust me, you're good with kids. _Doyle_ is bad with kids. The first time he met Junior, he tried to, like, bow to him or something. It was super awkward." Tucker waved a hand. "Anyway, if it's too weird, forget it. But if you're going to eat, you might as well tag along."

A delighted smile finally won out over Wash's best efforts. "Sure. Sounds good."

"Great!" said Tucker, grinning big. "You okay to leave now? He gets off school in half an hour or so, and I'm not sure how traffic's gonna be."

"Yeah, just let me talk to Jensen and I'll be set. Meet you out front."

"Cool," said Tucker, and waved a goodbye to the kittens, who were already busying themselves with the exhausting task of settling in for a long nap.

At the front desk, Lopez was flat on his back under a row of cages. "Hey, Lopez," Tucker said. "How's it going?"

"Usted no habla español," Lopez muttered, which sounded fairly promising, so Tucker pressed on.

"That's cool, that's cool. What're you working on?"

"Todo. Rompieron todo, así que estoy arreglando."

"Sweet, nice talk, Lopez. You... you keep being you. Follow those dreams."

Lopez snorted, and there was a vaguely mechanical-sounding bang as he hammered at, well, something or other.

Whistling, Tucker went up to the reception desk and reached behind it for a handful of the candy Donut always stashed back there. He could hear the photocopier whirring away in the background, and the occasional laugh from either Donut or Doc, because apparently paperwork was hilarious, who knew?

Tucker was just starting to really enjoy the relative peace and quiet when the doors to the dog side burst open and Grif stormed out. "I can't believe you'd say that!"

Simmons trailed after him, a clipboard clutched in one white-knuckled hand. "I'm stating a fact! I'm saying, the shelter literally doesn't have the money to keep running unless we take Hargrove's offer! Doyle is right!"

"Hargrove's a dick, and so's Doyle!" Grif snarled, and whoa, Tucker had never seen him this worked up before, like, actually putting effort into being angry.

"Shut up, Grif!" Sarge bellowed, kicking the door open again behind Simmons. "You're always disagreeing with everything good and right in the world! That Hargrove fella is up to no good, I can tell you that much. I wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw him, which is, I might add, pretty dang far! Got an arm on me."

Grif paused, and Tucker watched, fascinated, as he spluttered for words for a moment. "That's _exactly what I'm saying_ , you're _agreeing with me_ , you _asshole_!"

"Stop backtalking, Grif! We don't need that kind of attitude on the dog side. We've got enough traitors as it is." Sarge turned to give Tucker a formidable glower. Tucker grinned nervously.

"I'm just saying," said Simmons, "the guy's given us leeway to get all our current animals rehomed before he'll tear the place down. That might be more time than we'd get otherwise. Doyle's right, we're running on fumes, here."

Grif threw up his arms. "Oh, and I guess you believe Hargrove when he says he's gonna keep us open for a little while out of the goodness of his heart?"

"Of course I don't! I'm saying, we may not have any other options!"

Tucker registered the fact that he was chomping on candy like it was popcorn and finally swallowed, drawing back from the desk. "Wow, so that Hargrove dude's still coming around? What a dick. Does Kimball know the money's that tight?"

"Kimball's still out," said Simmons.

"Simmons is too scared to tell her," Grif translated, which earned him a glare.

Tucker shrugged, and was rescued from getting involved when Wash pushed the door to the cat side open, his jacket under his arm. "Oh," he said, seeing the dog-siders clearly mid-fight. "Uh. Hi."

Grif, grumbling under his breath, stormed back through the door to the dog side, Simmons hot on his heels. Sarge paused, eyeing Wash speculatively, then said, "Afternoon."

"Yes," said Wash, clearly a little lost. "It is."

Sarge nodded sagely and strode through the door to the dog side.

"Dude, I think he likes you," Tucker said, pushing open the door to the outside world and shivering at the autumn chill in the air.

Wash followed him, drawing his jacket on with a slightly dazed expression. "I don't know if that's a good thing."

Tucker paused in the parking lot, trying to count cars without seeming like he was working out which one belonged to Wash. "We should take my car, just so Junior knows what to look for. I could give you a ride back here to pick up yours?"

"I took the bus," Wash said, with a shrug. "Carolina usually gives me a ride."

"Huh," said Tucker, disappointed. At this point, Wash could've owned anything from a Smart Car to a Lambo to a Hummer and he wouldn't have been surprised. He unlocked his own little Toyota, gesturing for Wash to get in. "You don't have a car?"

"Um, no," said Wash, awkwardly pushing aside an old newspaper to sit gingerly in the passenger seat. "Cars and I don't get along."

"You and Carolina both, I guess" said Tucker, sliding into the driver's seat and starting the engine—and, more importantly, the heating. When the hell had it started getting so chilly? He turned down the bubbly pop music that was Junior's latest fave, rapping his fingers against the steering wheel. "You can slide the chair back, man, Junior usually sits behind me."

"Ah, thanks," said Wash, and with a little trial and error managed to slide the seat back to give himself a little more legroom.

"This is sort of a treat," Tucker said, waiting for Wash to fasten his seatbelt before pulling out of the lot. "I mean, Junior will be thrilled to see you and all, but we don't eat out a whole lot. Going for burgers will blow his mind."

"Sounds like he really needs a pick-me-up," Wash said.

"Tell me about it." Tucker glared at a red light. "Like, I was always sort of the class clown in school, never really got into the fighting bullshit. Lover, not a fighter, you know."

There was a smile in Wash's voice. "How much of a lover could you possibly have been in elementary school?"

"I'll have you know that Suzie gave me a peck on the cheek behind the storage shed during recess," Tucker said, then deflated. "I mean, she threw a dodgeball at my balls ten minutes later, so that was the end of that."

"Ah, young love," said Wash, deadpan.

Tucker snorted. "How about you? I bet you got into fights in school."

"Something like that," Wash said. Tucker cast him a sidelong glance and was a little disappointed to realize that Wash was tapping away on his phone, only half-involved in the conversation. "I mostly kept to myself."

"Yeah, it's the 'mostly' that sounds interesting."

Wash shrugged, but didn't seem inclined to add anything more to the conversation, so Tucker sighed, turned up the radio, and bopped along to Some Direction or whatever the hell it was.

They pulled up to the school ten minutes before the final bell, but Junior was already sitting on the front steps. When he saw the car, he got up and stomped toward it, dragging his backpack on the ground behind him. Tucker instantly recognized the slouching posture as Category 4: Surly, and winced. "Oh boy."

Junior's face brightened a little once he got close enough to see inside the car, and he clambered in with a smile. "Hey, Wash."

Wash turned to grin at him. "Hi, Junior. Tucker invited me along for dinner. Hope that's okay?"

Junior beamed. "We're going out? Can we go to Burgerama?"

Tucker blew out a frustrated breath. "Junior, you gotta give me that paper in your hand first."

Sticking out his lower lip in a pout, Junior kicked the back of Tucker's seat, then handed over the detention slip.

Tucker read it, holding back on another irritated sigh. "You were fighting? Are you okay?"

Junior kicked the back of Tucker's seat again in response. Tucker turned to face him, looking him up and down. Scuff-marks on his jeans, but no cuts or bruises. "Junior. I mean it. Are you okay?"

With a quick glance at Wash, Junior smiled, a little shyly. "Mitch didn't even get a punch in. I was too good."

Tucker groaned. "That is not something you should be proud of, man. Why'd you fight him?"

Another kick at the back of his seat, more emphatic this time.

"We're not going for dinner until you tell me," Tucker said. "And poor Wash here is just gonna waste away waiting for your response."

"I am pretty hungry," Wash said, blandly.

Junior snorted. "Mitch is the second-biggest guy in my class. I wanted to see if I could take him."

Tucker counted mentally to ten, then said, "No TV for a month. And yes, that includes Netflix." Over Junior's wail of protest, he continued, ruthlessly. "No video games, either. We're gonna talk about this, okay? You're being a bully."

"But I'm better than they are!"

"Yeah, great," Tucker said. "Who exactly are you trying to prove that to? I'm already on your side, man. I'm always on your side."

Junior kicked the seat again, scrubbing the beginnings of tears out of his eyes. "Does that mean no Burgerama?"

"Of course we're still going," Tucker said. "Wash is here and everything. We're going to Burgerama and you're getting whatever you like. Yes, including a milkshake. But you're gonna talk to Wash and me about picking fights, you're gonna explain to me how you think Mitch feels tonight, and then we're gonna talk about what you're gonna do the next time you feel like picking a fight. And we're gonna do something like that every time you want to watch TV or play video games over the next month. Okay?"

Junior's face shifted in a comically transparent battle between boring-discussion-stuff and burgers-plus-milkshake. His stomach won out, in the end. "Fine," he said. This time, his kick to Tucker's seat was a little less kidney-bruising.

"Cool," said Tucker, and pulled out of the parking lot.

Wash shifted to look back at Junior. "Okay, pop quiz: what's the best flavor of milkshake?"

Junior gave a startled laugh at Wash's mock-serious demeanor. "Uh. Chocolate?"

"Good answer," Wash said. "But you're totally wrong. It's obviously peanut butter-banana."

"Ewww," Junior said, delighted.

"That's gross, man," Tucker said. "Does anyone even make those?"

"They will if you ask. Don't knock it 'til you've tried it."

They got to the restaurant early enough that there were still seats open on the patio on a Friday night. Despite the chill in the air, Junior insisted they sit outside—it was a nice residential neighborhood and he liked watching people walk their dogs—and Tucker was still feeling guilty enough about the no-Netflix thing to give in. They perched themselves at the high chairs under a dusty umbrella right where the patio met the sidewalk, Junior kicking cheerfully at the rungs of his chair, having apparently forgotten the whole stern-talking-to-thing.

And, look, over the past eight years Tucker had gotten pretty good at disciplining his kid—as a black teen dad, you got judged pretty fucking hard by literally everyone even if you didn't instantly know how to parent perfectly—but he still felt like shit every single time, so he was okay with putting off the harder conversation for a bit. Besides, Wash had ordered them a round of peanut butter-banana shakes with dinner, and he was sitting huddled in his jacket, looking out at the world with a sort of dazed smile on his face. Tucker didn't think he'd ever seen the guy looking so relaxed. The heavy conversation could wait.

"Have you been here before, Wash?"

"Yeah," said Wash. "Yeah, a couple times."

"Huh," said Tucker, folding one edge of his napkin over. "But you didn't grow up here." It wasn't a question—it seemed patently absurd that someone like Wash could've come from somewhere like this.

Wash shrugged, apparently unaware that Junior was staring at him in starry-eyed wonder. "I grew up lots of places."

"This was my hometown," Tucker said, smiling at the server as she dropped off their milkshakes. "Used to stop here back before it was a chain."

Junior grabbed his milkshake first and took a big gulp of it. His nose wrinkled, then he grinned. "Whoa, that's not bad!"

"Right?" said Wash. "Best milkshake flavor. Ever. Of all time."

"I don't know if I'd go that far," Junior said in his adult-conversation tone of voice, which was mostly just his regular voice with added boredom. He took another big swig of the milkshake, then pointed. "Whoa, look at that car!"

At first, Tucker thought he was pointing out an old blue station wagon trundling down the road at approximately five miles per hour, but just ahead of it was a shiny new BMW in an eye-catching red. "Damn," he said, "that's pretty nice."

"So cool!"

"That... sure is a car," Wash said.

"You're such a nerd," Tucker said.

Wash grinned, taking a sip of his milkshake. Tucker followed suit for the first time and was surprised when it wasn't half as disgusting as he'd expected. "See?" Wash said. "I know my milkshakes."

"That your day-job? Milkshakeologist?"

"That's a super-ugly station wagon, though," Junior said, still watching the cars go by.

"Hey, we in the illustrious field of milkshakeology take our jobs very seriously." Wash cupped his hands around his glass like it was something warm on a cold day. "So, Junior. You won a fight."

Tucker was momentarily torn between relief that Wash had been the one to bring it up, and irritation that Wash had been the one to bring it up, because hey, dude knew how to dodge a personal question. But since he'd brought it up... "C'mon, man. What happened?"

Junior sighed. "I saw Mitch standing at the edge of the playground, like he was just sort of watching everyone, so I went up behind him and hit him in the ear. He got mad and pushed me down, so I got up and hit him again. He started crying and went for the teacher." Junior held out his hand, showing off the bruises on the knuckles.

"Make a fist," Wash said. "Yeah, I thought so. You're squeezing your thumb, that's how you break bones. Yours, not the other guy's. Keep it on the outside. Like that, right?"

"Feels weird," Junior said, screwing up his face.

"Sure. Throwing a punch shouldn't feel natural. It's something a lot of people go their whole lives without doing." Wash glanced briefly at Tucker, who nodded encouragement. "So why'd you hit Mitch?"

Junior glared at his own fist for a moment, then looked back up at the road. "It's the same station wagon," he said. "Why's it driving so slow? Man, it's ugly."

"Junior," said Tucker. "Answer Wash's question."

Junior fidgeted, kicked the rungs of his chair. "I hit him because he didn't see it coming."

"That's some messed-up logic," Tucker said. "Why'd you pick a fight in the first place?"

"To show you're better than he is," Wash said, echoing Junior's earlier words. "Right?"

Junior shrugged, looking down at the table.

Tucker felt his stomach drop. "Junior, are you worried people think less of you because you stayed back a grade?"

Junior sniffled, still looking down at the table, and nodded.

"Oh, come on," Tucker said. "You started school early, you were never happy being the smallest one there. You begged me to hold you back for, like, a year straight!"

"I didn't know it was gonna be this bad!" Junior wailed, just as their server came up with dinner. Tucker shot her an apologetic glance as she handed out their burgers. Junior didn't even seem to notice her presence. "Everybody thinks I'm stupid or something, and that's why you held me back."

"I got held back twice in school," Wash said, mildly.

Junior shut his mouth, staring in awe at Wash. Tucker caught himself staring as well. "Seriously?" Junior said. "You? Why?"

Wash shrugged. "I didn't learn how to read as fast as I should. I'm not so good with numbers, either, at least not the way they taught it in class. They held me back in third grade and again in fifth, I think."

"But you're so smart!" Junior burst out, his own existential angst temporarily forgotten.

"In different ways," Wash said. "I realized pretty early on that the only person I had to convince of that fact was me. You're lucky, Junior. You've got a dad who cares about you unconditionally." He glanced at Tucker, then looked away, almost shyly. "It's okay to need extra time learning things." He held up a hand. "And I know that's not why you stayed back a year, but hey. Next time someone says you were held back because you're not as smart as the others, you tell them that you know somebody who was held back because he maybe wasn't as smart as the others, and that wasn't really a bad thing. It's none of their business, anyway."

Tucker chewed thoughtfully on a french fry. A cynical part of him wondered whether Wash was bullshitting, but Junior was really listening, for once. "Are people actually saying you're not smart, Junior, or are you just worried they will?"

Junior shifted uneasily, reaching out to swipe one of Tucker's fries despite the full plate in front of him. "Mostly just worried, I guess."

"Look," said Tucker. "You can come tell me when it becomes a reaction, okay? When you're hitting someone because they're hitting you first, with words or whatever, we'll talk about it. But when you're just beating up on everyone so nobody can say anything bad about you, you're being a bully. And bullies are pretty much the worst."

Junior pressed a french fry into a dollop of ketchup, squishing it into the plate. "I kinda feel bad about Mitch. I made him cry in front of everyone. It felt sort of cool when I did it, but I'd hate it if it were me."

"Something to think about, anyway," Wash said, leaning back in his chair. Junior was staring at him like he was some sort of heroic video game character come to life. Tucker was kinda doing the same.

"Thanks," Tucker blurted out, then took a bite of his burger, feeling his face heat.

"It's fine," Wash said, smiling, and Tucker couldn't help noticing he had something between his teeth, some little piece of spinach or something from his veggie burger. "It's nice to talk about something that isn't work for once."

"There it is again!" said Junior, pointing. "Look at that station wagon! It just keeps rolling by."

"You think they're lost?" said Tucker, reaching over to steal one of Wash's fries, his own supply lines having been compromised by Junior.

A glint of light in the early-evening sun caught his eye, and he looked up. Shitty old station wagon, blue, rolling with the windows down despite the chill. It was definitely the same one that had gone by a couple times before. Kinda creepy. And there was the flash of light again. Someone taking pictures? No. A reflection off a metallic surface...

He was already reaching for Junior when the first gunshot sounded.

Much later, the police would ask him how many shots there had been, exactly, and he wouldn't be able to recall. All he'd remember was a volley of pops, absurdly loud in the quiet evening air. Junior's indrawn breath, a nightmare-gasp. The sound of a glass shattering.

And then the car was peeling out at the end of the street. Tucker watched his own hand clench and release, clench and release in Junior's shirt while he struggled to catch his breath, and then he was on his feet, grabbing at Junior, pulling him to the ground, touching his hair, his chest, his face, whispering, "We're okay, we're okay, we're okay."

Junior sucked in a breath, sitting on the floor, eyes wide and scared as he submitted to Tucker's ministrations. No rips in his clothes, no blood, we're okay, we're okay. Tucker touched his cheek. "Junior. Hey. You all right?"

Junior nodded twice, sharply, then flung himself at Tucker, clinging, burying his face in his chest. He wasn't crying.

Tucker realized he'd been holding his breath and gasped an exhale, dragging Junior with him to his feet. "Hell," he said, touching Junior's hair, his shoulder, small reassurances. Junior still had his face pressed to Tucker's shirt. "We're okay."

Wash was sitting in his chair, watching them, breathing hard. One of his hands was gripping the edge of the table, so tight Tucker could see the tendons standing out under his skin.

"What the fuck," Tucker said, conversationally, and gave a high, nervous laugh.

"You're okay?" said Wash, hoarsely. "Is anyone..." He turned his head, raising his voice. "Anyone hurt?"

Tucker turned to look; there were only a half-dozen other people on the patio with them, and they all seemed to be coming back to reality at about the same rate. An older woman in a suit who'd apparently fallen from her chair waved off her concerned companion. A young man was crying, softly, at his table, but he looked unharmed.

"Looks like we're good," Tucker said. His own voice sounded like it was coming from miles away. "Nobody's hurt."

Wash nodded jerkily, and released his death-grip on the table to rap his knuckles against it a couple of times. "Um," he said. "About that."

His other arm, Tucker noticed belatedly, was tucked in close against his chest. "Oh, no," Tucker said. "Oh, you _asshole_."

Wash dropped his arm like it had suddenly become too heavy, leaning sideways in his chair. There was something dark standing out against his grey jacket. Blood. It had to be blood.

Tucker caught him by the shoulders as he started to slide out of the chair, laid him out on the ground as gently as he could manage, and all he could think about was, selfishly, Junior's horrified stare, how unfair it was that Junior had to witness something like _this_.

Wash looked up at him, brow furrowed, and opened his mouth to speak. He still had the little bit of fucking spinach between his teeth. He coughed. There was blood in his mouth, on his lips. There was so much blood on his jacket.

Tucker had taken a first aid course back when Junior was born, but he didn't, he couldn't... He turned, pointed directly at the first person he saw. "You! Call an ambulance." And that was right, he knew, you had to pick someone in particular to make the call or everyone would just watch. Bystander effect. Right.

Wash's eyelids were drooping, his head lolling to one side. Tucker cursed and fumbled on the table for a napkin, then pressed it hard against Wash's chest, trying to apply pressure. Wash didn't react. The blood siphoned up and spread out on the cheap paper, startlingly bright and warm against the palm of his hand.

Junior was watching. Junior said, softly, "Is Wash gonna die?"

And for a long time the only thing Tucker could hear was sirens.


	5. Perturbation

The week after the shooting was sheer chaos.

The story—an apparently random shooting in a low-crime area—made the news, and some enterprising reporter worked out Wash's connection to the shelter. At that point, Kimball, still recovering from the flu, had to organize a volunteer drive at the local college to try to find enough folks to cover the uptick in attendance at the shelter. The problem was compounded by the fact that half of the would-be volunteers seemed mostly motivated by trying to dig up more information about the mysterious shooting. The police wouldn't comment on an ongoing investigation.

Kimball, pushing through the shelter doors to the cat section with her cell phone awkwardly hiked up between her shoulder and her ear, felt like she hadn't slept in months.

"I'm just saying," said Tucker, over the phone, "I'm glad adoptions are up this month, but there's gotta be easier ways to advertise the shelter."

"No kidding," said Kimball, sketching a wave at Jensen, who barely glanced up from an intense conversation with Volleyball. "How's Junior holding up?"

"We're gonna try him back at school next week," said Tucker. She could hear the sizzle of a frying pan in the background, and her stomach grumbled jealous dissatisfaction with her Powerbar breakfast. "School counselor's gonna meet with him. I think he'll be okay. We talked about it, and he said that me being scared too actually made him feel a little better."

"Sounds like you're doing the right thing," said Kimball, paging through a half-assed chart written by one of the new volunteers. "How about you? You're taking college classes part-time, right?"

"I... yeah, I'll be back to classes next week. Maybe week after. You know. Want to be there for Junior."

Kimball paused, leaning against the wall, and moved the phone to her other ear. "Hey, Tucker, you know you can take as much time as you need..."

"Don't do that concerned voice with me. I'm good. I'll be in on Friday to pick up the kittens. Hey, I hear Wash is out of the ICU, they stabilized him and everything. Might go visit him later."

"No kidding? That's fantastic." Kimball glanced through a window to see Carolina dutifully measuring out cups of food for the swarm of overexcited cats weaving around her legs. "I'll tell Carolina. She's been working all morning, doubt she heard the news."

"That's great," said Tucker, sounding distracted. "Hey, I got this thing on the stove..."

"That's fine," Kimball said. "Thanks for calling, Tucker. It's always nice to talk. See you Friday."

"Yeah, you too," Tucker said, and hung up.

Smiling, Kimball pushed into the room where Carolina was trying in vain to keep Snarfy from eating not only his allotted quarter-cup of food but also the rations of every other cat in the room. "You're gonna want to put his bowl up high so he's got farther to go to bug the other cats. Better yet, spread it out in a few bowls next to each other so it takes him longer to eat."

"Ah," said Carolina, scooping up Snarfy in her arms when he swatted at one of the other cats. She was still awkward and stiff when holding the cats—she didn't seem to have realized that the more uncomfortable she was, the squirmier they got—but at least she'd managed to work on her technique a little. "I knew there had to be a trick."

"Hey, so I just got some great news about Wash," Kimball said, waving her phone to illustrate. "Tucker says he's stable and on the mend. He should be able to see visitors today."

"That's good," said Carolina, stroking Snarfy, who was practically vibrating with his desire to jump down and descend upon the other cats' food from his new aerial vantage point.

"That's _great_ ," Kimball said. "Have you been to see him yet?"

Carolina blinked and tightened her grip on Snarfy as he squirmed. "Not really. He's... you know, Wash is a bit of a cockroach. It takes a lot to keep him down. I figured he'd be all right."

"The guy took a bullet to the chest and you _figured_ he'd be all right," Kimball said, slowly and carefully.

"It wouldn't be—" Carolina started to say, and then seemed to catch herself, shaking her head. "I know it looks weird, Kimball, but that's how we've always been. Besides, I'm not big on hospitals. I know he isn't either. I took the bus in today, anyway."

 _It wouldn't be the first time_ , Kimball filled in, mentally. Yeah. And it wouldn't be the first weird thing about Wash and Carolina. She'd mostly managed to convince herself that Carolina had asked someone at the front desk for her address before they'd left. Hell, Kimball had been so feverish that she could just as easily have told Carolina her address and forgotten it. But potted plants and hit-and-runs and... and now drive-by shootings. There was something seriously wrong, here.

"I can give you a ride to the hospital, if you'd like. I wouldn't mind paying him a visit myself."

Carolina scratched Snarfy under the chin. "Oh, no, that's all right, I'll probably stop by later."

Kimball crossed her arms. "Carolina," she said, "I've been meaning to ask—"

Behind her, the door opened and Bitters poked his head in. "Hey, Kimball, you got a minute?"

Kimball looked at Carolina, who blinked back with what was almost certainly a would-be innocent expression. "I... yeah, Bitters, sure. Carolina, you're here until one, right? Come talk to me before you leave for the day, okay?"

She'd have to take Carolina's noncommittal grunt as a reply for now. Grimacing, Kimball followed Bitters out into the hallway. "What's up?"

Bitters glanced up and down the hallway, then said, "I approved Mrs. Hedley's application for Max. You know, the old lady and the old cat."

"That's great," said Kimball. "Really, Bitters, I'm so glad that worked out. You need any help with the adoption?"

"No, her son's coming up to help get the cat home." Bitters shifted to lean against the wall. "I wanted to say, the reason it was so tricky is because she reminds me of my grandma. You know? And I felt like there was a lot of pressure because I kept thinking, this is the last cat she'll ever have. And this is the last owner Max will ever have. I didn't want to fuck it up."

"Ah," said Kimball. "That. Yeah." She reached out, a little awkwardly, and put a hand on Bitters' shoulder. "You didn't fuck it up. You did a good thing for both of them."

He shrugged again, looking at the floor, but a faint smile was playing at the corners of his lips. "It's sure easier not to give a shit, huh?"

Kimball smiled back, squeezing his shoulder and releasing him with a little shove. "Easier, but definitely overrated. You've been doing great, Bitters. You ever need a reference letter or something, it'll be a glowing one."

"Oh God," Bitters said, tipping his head back against the wall. "I'm becoming a suck-up. Teacher's pet. Nobody tell Grif, he'll be devastated."

"I think he bought the maverick-with-a-heart-of-gold explanation I gave him last week," Kimball said.

"Kimball!"

Kimball turned, wearily, to face the latest crisis, this time in the form of Donut leaning through the door. "What's up?"

"Doyle wants to talk to you!"

Kimball heaved a sigh. "And I guess he won't be deterred by the fact that I don't especially want to talk to him?"

"Nope," Donut said, cheerily, popping the 'p'.

With a shrug at Bitters, Kimball marched out into the main office, where Doyle was standing at one end of the front desk. "You couldn't have come in and asked for me yourself? All week you've been sending Donut around to run these little errands for you!"

Doyle, already a nervous man, had been downright fidgety ever since news of the shooting had gotten back to the shelter; now he kept looking up at the glass door like he expected bad guys with machine guns to come roaring through. "Yes, well, Donut was happy to oblige. He _is_ an employee."

Kimball crossed her arms, leaning on the desk across from Doyle. "Donut's always happy to oblige, but he's got his duties out here. I don't know what kind of power trip you're on, but you shouldn't be—"

"Stop fighting! Please! Can't you see you're tearing this family apart?" Donut wailed. They both turned to stare at him, and he glowered back, a surprisingly effective expression given its contrast with his usual cheerful grin.

"Sorry," Kimball said, at the same time as Doyle murmured, "My apologies."

"You two need to work out your issues," Donut said. "You know, Doc's pretty good at mediating conflicts..."

"Absolutely not," Doyle said, at the same time as Kimball murmured, "I think we're good."

"Okay," Donut said, hands on his hips. "Well. I'm gonna go do some photocopying. So I'll, uh. I'll just go."

They watched him march off in silence.

"See what your stubbornness is causing!" Doyle said.

Kimball snorted a laugh. "Oh, I knew you'd be back to pin this on me. What's up, Doyle? All the extra income and donations this week _still_ not enough for you?"

"Hargrove contacted me with a better offer," Doyle said.

That brought Kimball up short. "You. He contacted you directly."

"I believe he saw in me a kindred spirit, someone who would give his proposal the fair hearing it deserved."

Kimball leaned across the desk to jab a finger at Doyle's chest. "You realize you can't make business decisions without me? I'm full owner of this mess, and it's my call what happens to it."

"And a fine mess it is," Doyle said, sneering. "Miss Kimball, have you even asked your financial man precisely how badly things are going right now? Because I've seen the numbers, and once this wave of popularity dies down with the news cycle, we're going to run out of money. We're going to have to shut down, and there will be no guarantee at all that the animals currently in residence will be given homes. Do you have room for a hundred dogs and cats at your house, Miss Kimball?"

"No," Kimball bit out. "But I know for a fact that you do."

They glared at each other in silence. Doyle looked away first. "Don't you even want to know what the offer was?"

"I'm not taking it," Kimball said. "I'm not shutting this place down."

" _Damn_ it," Doyle said, slamming his hands on the table. He winced, shaking them out. "I know that you wanted to go back to school. That you were planning on law school, on passing the bar. That your friends and co-owners left you in the lurch with a failing business five years ago. This is never what you wanted, and you're being offered a chance to walk away clean and make a fresh start, with all of the animals here provided for. What sick sense of obligation is keeping you here?"

"I'm not shutting this place down," Kimball said, again. "Don't pretend you're concerned about anything other than the money, here. You can't understand why someone would have motives that don't involve personal gain in some way. If you did, you'd realize there are always going to be more animals needing homes, and we can only put a dent in that if we stay open. If you did, you'd be begging Mommy and Daddy dearest to increase their donations to the shelter beyond the bare minimum they've been giving to keep your useless ass in a fucking job."

She knew she'd gone too far when Doyle flinched violently. "Then maybe," he said, slowly, "I should consider seeking employment elsewhere. See how well you do without my family's 'bare minimum' donation."

Kimball breathed heavily for a moment, her fingers splayed out flat against the desk in front of her. Then, with a shove that actually shook the desk a little, she spun and marched back into the cat section, past the rows of free-roam and meet-and-greet rooms, and into the kitchen, where she grabbed her jacket and Carolina's blue-green hoodie off the pegs behind the door. She moved through the hallway until she found Jensen and Volleyball.

"I'm heading out," she said, and apparently her attempts at schooling her expression to something approaching neutrality had failed because both Jensen and Volleyball were staring at her with wide eyes. "It's pretty quiet, so you should be fine. Give me a call if you need me."

"Um," said Jensen. "Okay?"

Kimball strode past her and into the free-roam room where Carolina was clipping Tiddles' claws. She threw her hoodie at her; Carolina grabbed it out of the air with a perplexed expression. "C'mon," said Kimball. "I'm taking you to go visit Wash in the hospital. We're leaving now."

Carolina stared, still clutching her hoodie at arm's length, her brow furrowed. "Is everything okay?"

"Great," Kimball said. "We're all fine here. Let's go."

Carolina stood, dusting cat hair off her jeans, and for a moment Kimball thought she was going to refuse. But, after a moment, Carolina just shook her head and pulled on her hoodie. "Lead on," she said.

Doyle wasn't in the front lobby when they stepped back out, but Donut and Doc were standing behind the reception desk, watching them with wide eyes. Carolina waved a goodbye, but Kimball didn't trust her voice enough to do more than storm through the front doors and out into the cold late-October air.

She stared up at the clear sky, breathing hard, jamming her hands in the pockets of her jacket. Carolina, standing beside her, nudged her with her shoulder. "What was that all about?"

"It's nothing," said Kimball. "Doyle's an ass."

"Well, that's hardly news," said Carolina, and it took Kimball a moment to realize there was a smile in her voice. "You seem pretty capable of holding your own against him. If worse comes to worst, you could always challenge him to arm wrestling."

Kimball glanced at Carolina with one eyebrow raised. "Are you trying to cheer me up?"

Carolina, looking out at the parking lot, waved an arm expansively. "I can see it now. You, with your elbow on the table, all ready to go. Doyle, hiding under a table somewhere and blubbering."

More startled than anything at the flash of humor, Kimball choked out a laugh. "I... I may have been too hard on him, but that's a hell of an image to warm the cockles of my heart."

"Cold cockles are no laughing matter," Carolina said, striding out into the lot until she came up beside Kimball's car. "This is yours, right?"

"Yup," said Kimball, unlocking the car. She paused, leaning against it. Casual. Just ask the question. "Hey, uh, speaking of which. You know, that time you drove me home... how did you know my address?"

"Donut gave it to me," said Carolina, opening her door. "Or Doc, maybe. Someone at the front desk. You were pretty out of it. I didn't want to risk having you direct me to the house you lived at when you were three, or something."

Right. Made sense. As the owner of the shelter, Kimball's home address was on file behind the front desk. That was clearly the most logical explanation. Not everything had to be some big conspiracy. Sliding into the driver's seat, Kimball felt her cheeks heat with embarrassment. "Yeah, that makes sense."

Carolina was looking at her. "Why? Did you think I'd pulled it out of my ass?"

Kimball cleared her throat, thinking fast. "No, I, uh. I was just worried I'd told you and forgotten about it, and then I was a little worried about what else I'd said while I was so out of it. You know."

"Hah," said Carolina. "Don't worry. I wasn't doing so hot either, I don't remember a whole lot of that drive. Probably should've just called a cab."

"Probably," Kimball agreed, and started the ignition.

Instantly, the sounds of whale song and babbling brooks serenaded them. Carolina blinked twice, slowly. "Uh," she said.

Kimball fumbled for the eject button, pulled the _**Sounds of Essences of Lifetimes of Relaxation**_ CD out, and threw it like a frisbee into the backseat. "Donut," she said, by way of explanation.

"I wasn't going to judge," said Carolina.

Biting down a laugh, Kimball pulled out of the parking lot and started down the road to the hospital. "Uh," she said. "To be honest, I'm not even a hundred percent sure Wash can take visitors. Tucker seemed to think so. I don't even know what room he's in. I just needed to get out of there for a bit..."

"It's fine," said Carolina. "Wash called me from the hospital right after you left the first time. Room 2410. And yes, he can have visitors until five o'clock."

Kimball glanced at her, but Carolina's expression was almost painfully bland. "Uh-huh. I thought you were sure he was gonna be fine."

"He's a good friend," Carolina said. "And he specifically asked for me to come visit him."

Kimball caught the edge in her voice and drummed her fingers against the steering wheel. "That's unusual?"

"For him," said Carolina. "He... spent some time in a hospital last year. He wasn't too pleased when I came to see him then."

Keeping her tone deliberately light—this was the most Carolina had ever opened up to her—Kimball said, "Sounds like you've known him for a while."

Carolina shrugged. "A couple years. The nature of our work means we bonded pretty quickly."

"Yeah," said Kimball. They were in a car, no chance of interruption this time. She took a breath. "Hey, what exactly is it you do? I just realized I have no idea."

Carolina glanced at her, then shrugged again. "We work private security for some of the big companies around town. Freelancers, you know. Mostly sitting behind a desk drinking coffee and watching security monitors. Boring stuff, but you get to know the people you work with, and Wash and I have been partnered up for a while. He's quite a bit younger so he used to be terrified of me, but there's only so much shitty pizza you can eat and endlessly boring card games you can play with someone before you become friends."

"Huh," said Kimball. "Security. Ever see any action?"

Carolina snorted. "Once we got anchovies on our pizza by accident. That was pretty exciting. No, believe it or not, people tend not to try to break into big office buildings that don't actually house much of value. You'll get the odd drunk wandering in, but they're usually pretty amenable to being led back outside. It's a boring job, which is why we decided to try something new. Hence the shelter."

"Is Price your boss?"

Carolina actually turned to look at her, but Kimball was too busy trying to merge off a busy highway to see her face. "Price?"

"He called me to let me know you were gonna be okay. You know, after you got hit by a car."

"Oh," said Carolina. "Yeah, Price is one of the people who coordinates our assignments."

"I thought you were freelance."

"Mostly. But we still need an agent, you know? Especially after the recession. Price is pretty good with lining up jobs."

Stuck at a red light, Kimball drummed on her steering wheel again. "So, is that how—" she said, at the same time as Carolina asked, "What do you—"

"Sorry," said Kimball. "Go ahead."

Carolina shook her head. "What were you going to say?"

"I was just curious. Is that how Wash got hurt? Last year, I mean."

Carolina said nothing. The light held red, so Kimball looked over; her face was carefully blank. "I'm not comfortable telling that story without him knowing," Carolina said, slowly and precisely.

Kimball felt her face heat again. "Sorry. I didn't mean to pry."

"It's fine," Carolina said. "It's just not my story to tell. It wasn't on the job."

"Okay. Sorry again."

The light changed. Kimball said, "What were you going to ask?"

"Sorry?"

"Just now. You were asking what I...?"

"Oh." Carolina shifted in her seat. "Just being nosy. What brought you to the shelter?"

Kimball shrugged. "Had some buddies in pre-law with big plans, and I figured it would be nice to have a non-profit under my belt. We all decided to take some time to get this shelter idea off the ground, as part-owners."

"And the others dropped out," Carolina said. "I'm sorry."

Kimball dug a fingernail into the steering wheel. "Yeah," she said. "Me too. Lost three friendships over that split. But I felt like I couldn't really just abandon the shelter to go off to law school, so. Here I am."

Carolina was silent for a moment, then said, "Did you actually _want_ to go to law school?"

"Sure," said Kimball, without thinking, then paused. It wasn't exactly a question she'd asked herself in some time. "I mean, I did then. I'm pretty happy with the way the shelter's going now. If it weren't for the financial issues, we'd be golden. It's just not really something I ever felt too passionate about, is all. Just a transition that turned into something more permanent." She shrugged. "I turn thirty in a few months and I still don't know what I'm doing with my life."

Carolina's voice had a smile in it, again. "I'm thirty-five. Once I figure it out, I'll let you know."

"Thanks," Kimball deadpanned.

They drove on in companionable silence for a while. Just as Kimball made the turn for the hospital parking lot, Carolina said, "You're good at it, though. The shelter."

Kimball squinted up and down the lines of cars, looking for a gap to park. "Doesn't feel like it most days, but thanks."

"Sure. You keep it running on rails. From where I'm sitting, I would never have known there were financial issues. And the cats seem to be doing well." As they pulled into a spot, Carolina unbuckled her seat belt. "I'm just saying, it's possible that something can become your passion over time. It doesn't have to be an _a priori_ thing."

"Hah," said Kimball, finally satisfied with her parking. "Right now I'd settle for it being a job where I get paid more than minimum wage. I've had to start editing physics students' papers on the side. You have any idea what your average physics student does to the English language?"

Carolina laughed, getting out of the car. "I'm going to go out on a limb and say there are some horrors visited there."

"I still hear the cries of the adverbs at night."

It wasn't until they were riding the elevator up to Wash's floor that Kimball realized that she hadn't been in the hospital since her dad's death. She was surprised at how little the realization hurt, even as she prodded at it like a loose tooth. A dull ache, for what might have been, but she'd had to move on quickly, deal with the estate. Mostly she associated the hospital with the vague, guilty little sense of relief she'd felt when it had all finally been over.

She glanced over to see Carolina standing with her arms crossed, staring at the ground. She was picking at a loose thread on the sleeve of her hoodie, a small, nervous motion.

"Not big on hospitals, you said?"

Carolina shrugged. "I just got out last week. Figured I'd at least get a little time to forget the smell of antiseptic."

"Some luck, huh?"

"Yeah," said Carolina. "Some luck."

Kimball let Carolina walk into Wash's room first, lingering at the doorway, but the reunion wasn't exactly the touching Hallmark moment she'd been expecting. Carolina stood at Wash's bedside, frowning down at him, and said, "You look like shit."

"Well," he said, voice startlingly weak, "I've been shot in the chest. So there's that, I guess. Is that Kimball?"

Kimball poked her head through the door, smiling nervously. "Hey, Wash. Thought I'd bring Carolina to come see you. How's it going?"

"Still really shot in the chest," he said, but smiled to take the edge off the words. "Thanks for coming. You didn't have to." He looked terrible, his hair plastered to his face by sweat, but he didn't look to be tethered to anything more intrusive than an IV and a heart-rate monitor that was beeping at a steady clip.

In a surprisingly natural motion, Carolina reached out and tousled Wash's hair. "Glad you're okay."

Wash mock-scowled at her. "Thanks, boss. Hey, there's a couple chairs in here somewhere. Got single occupancy for now, so might as well take advantage of it."

Carolina pulled up the chair next to Wash's head, and Kimball perched a little awkwardly on a chair in the corner of the room. Her stomach rumbled again, reminding her of her woefully inadequate breakfast, but she wasn't about to miss out on this opportunity to satisfy some of her curiosity.

Carolina said, "So? You said you had something to tell me. It's just us."

Kimball sat up bolt-upright in her chair, trying not to make it too obvious. Wash glanced at her anyway, then looked at Carolina, who shrugged. He said, slowly, "I heard from our old friend, uh. C.T."

Carolina drew a sharp breath. "How is that—"

"An e-mail. She left an encrypted e-mail that I intercepted." Wash shifted in his bed, obviously uncomfortable. "It's what we were worried about. It's... it's proof, Carolina."

"It's not enough proof," Carolina said. Her face had gone alarmingly pale. "We'll need more."

Wash shook his head. His voice was hard, all sharp edges. "I left it in the usual place. See for yourself if you don't believe me. Again."

Carolina pushed out of her chair, went to go stand by the window and look out. Then she said, "So we're decided."

"Some of us have been decided a whole lot longer than others," Wash said.

Carolina said, very softly and clearly, "Some of us can go fuck themselves," and turned and strode out of the room.

"Uh," said Kimball, left sitting awkwardly in the corner. "I'll just... I guess I'll just go?"

Wash's face relaxed into an exhausted smile. "Sorry," he said. "Work stuff. She'll come around. I really appreciate that you came to see me."

"Yeah," said Kimball. "I'll bring flowers next time instead of inexplicable hostility."

"Candy would be nice," said Wash. "Hospital food only goes so far."

"Hah." Kimball stood, shifting nervously, and glanced out into the hallway for any sign of Carolina. "Okay, look, I guess I'd better go after her, now that she's picked a fight with a friend in a hospital bed."

"Don't be too hard on her," Wash said. "It's not what it looks like."

"I mean, it doesn't look great."

"Sorry you had to see that." Wash cleared his throat. "She's going through a rough time right now. I think she could probably use a friend."

Kimball crossed her arms. "I think Tucker might be coming by this afternoon. Maybe with Junior, I don't know? That should be nice, at least."

Wash's expression shuttered, closing off. "I'm not feeling too great," he said. "Can you let the nurses know I'm not up for more visitors today?"

"Boy," said Kimball. "You guys really can't resist being cryptic given half a chance, huh?"

Wash smiled, faintly. "Occupational hazard."

With a wave, Kimball made her way out to the nurse's station to relay the message. By the time she'd finished, Carolina was standing at her elbow.

"Sorry you had to see that," Carolina said.

"You know, that's exactly what Wash told me?" Kimball pushed past Carolina to the elevator. "What the hell was that?"

Carolina leaned against the wall of the elevator across from her, fidgeting again with the loose thread on her sleeve. "It's a long story."

"I've got nowhere to be."

"A _private_ story," Carolina said, more sharply, and tugged at the thread, snapping it loose. "I can take a bus home, don't worry about it."

"Don't be ridiculous," Kimball said. "I'll drive you home." The elevator doors opened, and Carolina strode out first. "Carolina..."

"It's fine. I'll see you tomorrow."

Kimball closed the distance between them in two quick steps and grabbed Carolina by the shoulder. Carolina went rigid under her hand, but stopped her forward momentum. "Look," Kimball said. "I don't know what the hell that was all about, but Wash said you needed a friend. At least let me drive you home."

Carolina took a shallow breath, then said, "Fine. Okay."

The ride back from the hospital was tense, the quiet broken only by Carolina's muttered directions. Kimball dropped her off in front of a low-rise apartment complex in one of the nicer parts of town, and Carolina slammed her car door shut without a word, striding away. Kimball watched her until she was inside the building.

It took a moment for Kimball to stop shaking. She wasn't exactly a stranger to confrontation—she'd been considering law school, for fuck's sake—but between the fight with Doyle and the viciousness of Carolina's words to Wash, she felt wobbly and nauseous. Probably a good idea to stop somewhere for lunch on the way home.

She took a breath, steadied her hands on the wheel, and pulled away from the apartment complex. Her mind was still racing, playing back the day's conversations, so she wasn't entirely surprised when she missed her turn and wound up having to turn around in a cul-de-sac.

She drove back past where she'd dropped Carolina off just in time to see her jog out from a side door of the building.

"The hell?" she whispered, and, on a whim, made another U-turn further up the road.

When she passed the building a third time, Carolina was getting into a car, sleek and black with limo-tinted windows.

"What. The hell."

The car raced off; Kimball halfheartedly gave chase, but lost it at an intersection when it ran a red light and left her behind. She pulled off the road, grimacing, and picked up her phone. Dialed a number. Got the machine.

"Hey," she said. "Tucker. It's Kimball. When you're back, I think we should maybe meet up for a drink, sometime. No rush, but... I think there's something we need to talk about. Something seriously weird is going on with Wash and Carolina."


	6. Pernicious

Tucker was expecting a lot of things to happen on his first day back at the shelter after the shooting. Awkward sidelong glances, muttered conversation that'd stop the second he turned around, maybe figuring out where the fuck Wash had been spending his post-hospital time since apparently he couldn't answer his goddamn phone. Standard stuff, pretty much par for the course the way his life had been going.

What he wasn't expecting was Caboose.

He wasn't even out of the parking lot when he felt strong arms wrap around him from behind and lift him clear off the ground. If he'd had a little more breath, he'd have used it to sigh. "Hey, Caboose," he squeaked.

"Tucker! You're back!" Caboose took a second to think about that, then dropped Tucker so fast he had to stumble to keep his footing. "Aw, wait. You're back. That means you'll be here all the time again."

Caboose, for reasons they'd both forgotten years ago, periodically insisted he hated Tucker's guts. Most of the time, Tucker remembered to return the favor. "Yup," said Tucker. "Not even a little dead or anything. You're so perceptive, Caboose."

Caboose laughed and gave him a little shove. "Yes! You're misdirecting your anger at the situation by aiming aggression couched in humor toward your friends and acquaintances!"

Tucker stared up at him. Caboose stared back, then said, "Anyway, that's what Doc said was gonna happen. And he seems really smart."

"Oh boy," said Tucker. "I'm not sure I can adequately express how fuckin' great it feels to know _Doc_ is on the case."

Caboose said, "I knew you'd be happy!" but he wasn't smiling nearly as big as he usually did. He shifted his weight a little nervously and rubbed at his arms—he had to be cold, he was just wearing a t-shirt in this weather, which was making Tucker wonder how long he'd been waiting out in the parking lot for him—and glanced down at the ground. "I am so glad you're okay."

Tucker felt an inexplicable and absolutely irrational surge of fondness toward Caboose for what was possibly the first time ever. He was probably coming down with something. "Thanks," he said, then raised a hand. "But if you try to hug me again, I _will_ destroy everything you love."

Caboose screwed up his face for a moment like he was legitimately weighting the pros and cons, then grinned again, shrugged, and held the door open for Tucker, who shuffled through staring at the ground and hoping fervently there was nobody around to make a big deal out of his return.

Donut, tapping away on his DS behind the front desk, said, "Welcome back!"

Sarge, standing over a pile of paperwork at the entrance to the dog side, bellowed, "Well if it isn't the dirty traitor!"

Palomo, emptying the litterbox in one of the overflow cat cages at the front entrance, said, "I knew you weren't dead!"

Tucker took one look around the room and walked right back out the door.

He was most of the way back to his car before someone caught up to him, jogging behind. He only stopped when he recognized the smell of Kai's perfume—something musky with a hint of bubblegum. "Hey, asshole," she said, punching him on the shoulder. "You're not getting outta this that easy."

"I'm not in the mood, Kai," he muttered, pulling open the trunk of the car and staring blankly into it, hoping she'd get the message. "Just came in to pick up some extra food for the kittens. Didn't want people to make a big deal of it."

"Uh, you could've got shot. Of course people are gonna make it a big deal." Kai shrugged, leaning against the car. "But that doesn't mean you have to like it, I guess. How're you doing?"

Tucker looked at her for any sign of sarcasm or boredom, but she was just watching him, hugging herself against the breeze. He glanced away. "Fine," he said. "Junior's probably taking it better than me. I think it was smart to get him back in school as soon as possible. His friends think the whole thing was awesome, so he's starting to calm down a lot. And the school counselor's great."

"Good," Kai said. "I got kinda freaked out when you didn't answer the phone. And then you said you'd be back last week, but you never showed..." She leaned in to nudge him with her shoulder. "It's pretty boring here without you."

Tucker rubbed his hands together—like hell he was gonna start wearing gloves in _November_ —and stared into the trunk of his car. "I don't know what you're looking for me to say, Kai."

She sighed, tipping over further so she was leaning against him. "Nothing. You don't have to say anything. I'm just happy you're okay. We all are."

Tucker cleared his throat. The cold air was making his vision blur a little. "You're a good friend."

"Oh, gross! You're such a sap."

"I am _not_ a sap."

She shoved him, playfully. "Says the guy who proposed to me on the spot the one time we banged!"

"I," Tucker said, with an air of wounded dignity, "was _suave_."

"You said 'shit no I take it back wait' five seconds after you finished proposing," Kai said. "You're cute and all, but the constant blustering and need for approval is a little much, y'know? Total boner-killer." She planted a hand on his head—it was one of the great cosmic injustices of the universe that she was four inches taller than him—and patted, reassuringly. "If you're ever in the market for a three-way, though..."

"I wish," Tucker grumbled, hiding a grin as he closed the trunk and then leaned in to shuffle around some of the old papers in the backseat. Trust Kai to get his brain to do a 180 from worried to vaguely aroused in no time flat. "D'you know how much the twenty-something dating pool loves it when you have a kid who's old enough to know his multiplication tables?"

"Psh," Kai said. "You being a good dad is objectively the hottest thing about you. They're missing out." She took a step back, head cocked to one side, and regarded him critically. "Okay, your ass is pretty great. That's gotta be right up there on the hotness scale, too."

Tucker waggled his eyebrows and swayed his hips.

"Yup. You're an ass, all right," Kai said, slapped his butt, and kissed him on the back of the neck as he straightened up. "You're fine, Lavernius. You got us. Okay?"

Tucker glanced through the glass doors to the front desk, where Sarge appeared to be arguing with whatever game Donut had open on his DS. There was a lot of shouting going on. "Yeah, sure. With friends like these..."

"Speaking of hot friends," said Kai, and Tucker decided that was probably his cue to pull out the brain bleach. "You totally just missed Wash. He was on the morning shift."

Tucker froze. "He's back? I mean, I knew he was out of the hospital, but he's back here?"

"Yeah," said Kai, and crossed her arms. "You're pissed he didn't tell you?"

"Hell yeah I'm pissed," Tucker said, and slammed the door to his car. "I was worried! The least the guy could do is answer his phone when people are... worried..." He wound down at Kai's raised eyebrow. "Okay, I get it. We're both acting weird. You know, it's creepy when you're all insightful."

Kai sighed. "You know, Tucker, you're awfully lucky you're pretty."

"Shut up."

She leered. "Make me."

Grinning, Tucker shook his head and pushed past her into the shelter in time to hear Sarge bellow, "All you need is a good strawberry Yoohoo! What's with all the fancy junk?"

Donut glanced up at Tucker, a help-me look plainly written across his face. "We're having some disagreements with Cooking Mama."

"Failing that," Sarge continued, unabated, "the blood of your enemies will do just fine. And I'm sure you have a lot of enemies, Ms. Mama, if that is your real name!"

Tucker grinned, leaning on the counter. "Game going well?"

"It's delightful," Sarge said, with a snarl. He grabbed the DS straight out of Donut's hands and turned on his heel, still muttering as he stormed through the dog-side door.

"I'll, uh. I'll just get that back from you at the end of the day," Donut called after him.

"Look, better let me go get it or you'll never see it again," Kai said, jogging after Sarge.

Donut's expression shifted seamlessly from worry to happiness as he beamed at Tucker. "I'm really glad you're here."

"Me too," Tucker said. "Believe it or not, I really missed this place."

"Oops," said Palomo, and there was a metallic clang as two water bowls hit the floor, spilling their contents everywhere.

"And I immediately take it back." With a sigh, Tucker reached past Donut to tear off a handful of paper towels from the roll. "Dammit, Palomo. How many times have you done this now?"

"Only six," Palomo said, primly. "I can do that, you don't have to—"

"You'd somehow manage to make even more of a mess," Tucker grumbled, getting down on his knees. He pressed the paper towel against the water on the ground... and froze, watching it well up through the fabric, feeling the room-temperature warmth of it seeping against his cold hands. With a sharp inhalation, he pushed back to his feet, muttered, "You do it then," and jogged past Palomo to shoulder open the door to the cat side. And like, the kitten food he was looking for was actually behind the front desk, he knew that, but right now he needed to...

He paused, staring in through the door to one of the free-roam rooms. Carolina was sitting on the floor, patiently dragging a toy mouse in front of a big ginger tabby that kept losing interest in her lackluster rodent-roleplay.

Tucker's hands were shaking as he grabbed a squirt of sanitizer and opened the door.

Carolina glanced up when he came in, offered him a quick smile. "Hey, Tucker. Welcome back."

Tucker shifted his weight, started to lean back against the wall, then straightened, arms hanging awkwardly at his sides. "Thanks," he said, and glanced over his shoulder to make sure the hallway behind him was clear. "So what the fuck is going on?"

Carolina blinked. "Sorry?"

"No," Tucker said.

Carolina's lips pressed into a straight line; the cat showed a spark of interest when she flicked the toy away with a bit too much speed. "Tucker, I'm not really sure what—"

"No," Tucker said again. "Cut the bullshit, cut the... the whatever-the-fuck is going on. You and Wash, I don't know if you're ex-military or what, I don't give a fuck if you go home and eat MREs and do pushups all night long on your own time because you never grew the fuck out of boot camp, but now you're obviously wrapped up in some sort of trouble. You can't keep coming here like you're just—" He stopped, breathing hard, clenching and unclenching his fists, and had a little surge of satisfaction at Carolina's shocked face: it was the most genuine expression he'd ever seen on her.

"Tucker..."

Tucker held up a finger. "No, look, that was my kid, okay? My _kid_ got shot at because he was in the same area as Wash. And now he's picking even more fights because he's scared and it's like everything we worked for..."

" _Tucker_ ," Carolina said, more sharply, and Tucker shut the hell up because that was the voice of someone who was used to giving orders. "Listen to me. I honestly don't know exactly what happened that day. Okay? It was as much a surprise to me as it was to you."

"Bullshit."

Carolina's face crumpled, just for a moment; Tucker noticed for the first time that she had fine wrinkles at the corners of her eyes that might've been laugh lines, once. "I would never have let him get hurt if I'd known, if I'd had any suspicion..."

"You knew _something_ was up," Tucker said. "You got hit with a car, and I'll bet all those little bumps and bruises haven't been accidents, either. What the hell are you doing? Picking fights to get your kicks?"

"It's complicated."

"No," Tucker said, "it isn't."

"Tucker. Drop it."

Tucker shivered, rubbing his arms. "Or what?"

That stopped Carolina in her tracks; she stared at him until the cat grabbed the toy from her hand and marched proudly across the room with it.

"I think," Tucker said, slowly, rubbing his face with the palm of his hand, "you owe us an explanation. Me and Kimball especially. Whatever the fuck's going on, you don't have to keep doing it alone."

Carolina turned away, leaning under one of the cages to make a grab for the toy; the cat pulled it out of her reach. "You feeling okay, Tucker?"

Tucker crouched down on his haunches, blinking in an attempt to dispel the headache pounding behind his eyes. "Y'know, it comes across as vaguely threatening when you say stuff like that."

"You look like you haven't been sleeping. And something just set you off." Carolina grunted at the cat, conceding defeat, and pushed herself to her feet, looking down at him. "You've been rubbing your hand off and on since you came in here."

Tucker blinked, glanced down. "I, uh. I hadn't noticed. Palomo spilled something. I helped clean up."

Carolina crossed her arms, looming. "And it reminded you of the blood. Takes a while to get blood out from under your nails, doesn't it? You think you've finally managed to get it all off your hands, but it's still there."

Tucker opened his mouth to speak, had to clear his throat. Tried again. "Yeah, I think we're losing the 'vaguely' part of 'vaguely threatening', here."

Carolina shrugged, rifled through her pockets until she came up with a bit of paper and a pencil. "I'm saying, I know what you're feeling right now. You need to talk to somebody. I know a guy through the VA. He'll at least give you a referral somewhere else. Pretty sure he takes student insurance."

"I knew you were ex-military." Tucker shuffled to sit with his back against the wall, clicked his tongue at the cat that was still prowling around the room with its 'kill'. "You know why Wash isn't answering his phone?"

Carolina handed him the bit of paper; without looking at it, he pushed it into his pocket. She shrugged, taking a step back. "You'd have to ask Wash."

Tucker grimaced. "Thanks. That's real great advice." He whistled, lowly, and the cat pricked up its ears and came trotting over to deposit the toy in his lap. "Hey, there. Looks like someone taught you how to fetch." He scratched the cat behind its ears, then glanced up at Carolina, who was still watching him with what Tucker was rapidly starting to recognize as her version of concern. "Hey. Think fast."

Carolina, much to his disappointment, easily grabbed the toy out of the air when he threw it at her, but the look of disgust on her face when she realized it was soaked in cat-drool was priceless. "Thanks. I think."

There was... well, the silence couldn't exactly be called companionable, but it was a little less overtly hostile than before. Tucker figured he was probably feeling a bit better because he'd stopped being able to feel his pulse right down to his fingertips.

And then Carolina's gaze shifted so she was looking over Tucker's shoulder and her half-smile snapped back to a painfully neutral expression. Tucker turned in time to see Kimball shoulder the door open. She didn't see Tucker at first, wedged as he was against the wall, which meant he had a front-row seat as she shot Carolina a tight-lipped glare. And Carolina... in an earth-shattering moment of what-the-fuckitude, Carolina looked away first.

"Hey, Kimball," Tucker said, breaking the silence mostly because he wasn't sure how many more signs of the apocalypse he could take.

Kimball blinked, did a double-take, and grinned pure relief. "Tucker. It's great to have you back."

Tucker picked himself up off the ground, dusting cat hair off his legs, and caught himself before he started rubbing his hand again. "Just came in to pick up some food for the kittens, figured I'd stop in and see how things were going."

"He was helping me get Flopsy a little playtime," Carolina said, dangling the mouse from her hand.

"That's great," Kimball said, in what was possibly the blandest tone of voice in all of recorded history. "Tucker, can you come with me to the kitchen for a sec? We've got some paperwork to update."

"Uh," said Tucker. "Sure. Thanks for the, uh, number, Carolina. I'll give him a call."

Carolina nodded once, tersely, and Tucker followed Kimball out the door with the vague sense that he'd stumbled into a half-finished conversation. "Okay, dude," he said, once they were safely out of earshot in the kitchen. "That was fucked up. What's going on?"

Kimball hesitated, then pushed the door closed behind her. "Tucker," she said, "I think it's about time we compare notes on Carolina and Wash. There's something strange going on."

"You _think_?" Tucker's tone was so incredulous that he emitted a very menacing and totally intentional squeak.

"I... this sounds silly when I say it out loud, but I think Carolina gave me a fake address. I was giving her a ride home—"

Tucker's eyebrows had a life of their own, honest. At this point there was zero conscious thought involved in the waggling process.

Kimball glared at him. "Not like that. I took her to go see Wash in the hospital."

Tucker threw up his hands. "Seriously? You got to see him, Carolina got to see him, Kai said he was here earlier! I haven't even talked to him since the shooting!"

Kimball's brow furrowed. "Really? That seems... odd, that he'd be cutting you out like that. He and Carolina had some sort of argument when I was there. It got pretty vicious. Something about work. Wash seemed pissed that Carolina wasn't taking action in some way. Carolina seemed pissed off about something, I don't know what. She told him to go fuck himself."

Tucker blinked. "Wow. Great bedside manner."

"Yeah," said Kimball, leaning against a counter. "God, I'm sorry to go off on you like this, I don't really feel like I can talk about this with anyone else. How's Junior holding up?"

Tucker sighed, reaching over for a handful of the little chocolates Donut kept stocked in the bowls in every kitchen in the building. "Getting into fights again, but I think he's doing okay. Better than his old man. Carolina recommended a therapist, and like. I don't know. I guess it's a good idea."

"Carolina." Kimball rubbed her forehead. "Really. That's maybe not altogether unexpected."

Tucker shrugged, chewing. "Said she heard about him from the VA."

"Military connections," Kimball said, thoughtfully. "I mean, it makes sense, but. Hey, has Wash ever said anything about where he and Carolina work?"

Tucker popped another candy into his mouth. "He let slip that it was something to do with security, once. Sounded kinda boring."

"Yeah, they're freelance security for big office buildings. Which I guess would be a pretty reasonable career choice for a couple of veterans," Kimball said. "But with what happened to Wash... it seems like maybe they're getting in over their heads. They work with a guy named Price."

And okay, Tucker was trying his hardest to keep what Kai dubbed his 'pathetically sad puppy look' off his face, but he couldn't resist a little grumbled, "Well, _yours_ is sure a lot more forthcoming with information than mine."

Kimball said, in a choked voice, "Um."

Tucker blinked, felt his face heat. "Not like that! I mean, because Wash and I gamed together for a while and you and Carolina, like, actually talk sometimes. Not like they're actually... ours..."

"You done?"

"Yeah. I regret opening my mouth. Actually, I regret a lot of things."

Kimball grinned, shaking her head, and reached past him for a chocolate. "Honestly, I Nancy Drew'd my way into a lot of this info, don't feel bad. I do feel weirdly responsible for them."

"I'm a little less full of warm fuzzies these days," Tucker said, and regretted it immediately when the smile fell off Kimball's face. "But I don't... I don't want to just walk away. I want to help, if I can, you know? You think we should call the cops?"

Kimball picked at the chocolate's wrapper but didn't unwrap it. "I don't know. What would we even say? The people we volunteer with are acting strangely and bad things keep happening to them? Maybe they're just downplaying how dangerous their work is. It's not even really our business, we're just bystanders."

"You don't believe that."

"Not so much, no." Kimball set the candy back into the bowl, uneaten. "Thanks for talking, Tucker. I feel a little better knowing someone else is keeping an eye out."

"Same," said Tucker. "But the question is whether we're watching out for them or, like... watching out. For them."

"Either way," Kimball said, "we're not stuck doing it alone."

"Yup," said Tucker. "That's exactly what I told Carolina, actually, and—"

A hesitant knock at the door. "Um, hello?"

"Come in, Donut," Kimball said.

Donut peeked in the door, then grinned a little sheepishly. "Aw, it's just you guys. I was hoping I was about to uncover some sort of big scandal! Last time this door was closed, I almost walked in on Jensen and Volleyball! But anyway, we—"

Tucker held up a finger. "Wait, what? Can we go back to the part where—"

Kimball actually shushed him. She had a promising future as a librarian, apparently. "You were saying, Donut?"

"Right," said Donut, and straightened up. "I, uh. There's a visitor in the lobby. He didn't realize you were on-shift today."

Kimball clenched her hand into a fist, visibly restrained herself from banging it on the counter. "Hargrove."

"Yup," Donut said. "He's here to meet with Doyle—"

Kimball strode right past him, Tucker on her heels. As they passed the room where Carolina was working, Tucker paused for a moment to make eye contact with her. He shrugged, wordlessly, and pushed after Kimball into the main lobby.

"Hello, Mr. Hargrove," Kimball said, sweetly.

Everyone froze at the sound of her voice, and the resulting tableau looked downright classical. Hargrove and Doyle were leaning on the counter, paperwork spread out between them, while Grif, Simmons, and Sarge were hovering awkwardly at their side. Doc was perched on a stool, pretending not to listen in, and behind him Grey was watching the proceedings with a disapproving scowl.

"Miss Kimball," Doyle said. "Ah. You weren't listed on the schedule."

"No kidding," Kimball said.

Tucker edged past her into the lobby, perching nonchalantly against a wall. In all honesty, he kinda wanted to just grab his cat food and run, but it was behind the counter and, well. Things looked like they were about to get interesting.

"I apologize for the appearance of deception," Hargrove said, smiling. "Mr. Doyle and myself were merely attempting to put forward a more... attractive proposal for you."

" _Mr._ _Doyle_ has no authority in a situation like this," Kimball said. "I'm full owner. You deal with me."

"Vanessa," Doyle said, softly, "please, just hear us out. The financial situation is dire. Your own financial man will agree with me on this!"

"I," said Simmons, shakily, and shot a look at Grif, who appeared to be studying the floor. "I mean, the numbers really aren't... great..."

"Way to stand up to him, asshole," Grif muttered.

"So we'll make them better," Kimball said. Tucker noticed that her hands were clenched into fists. "We could be doing more."

"Based on what I've heard about your dedication," Hargrove said, "I'm not entirely sure there's any more you could be doing that you aren't doing already. I need this land, Miss Kimball. I'm presenting you with a best-case scenario in which we rehome these animals before shutting down the facility. I might remind you that there is no particular need for me to be so kind in my dealings."

Kimball actually flinched back. "Was that a threat?"

Hargrove smiled. "Of course not."

Sarge stepped forward. Tucker had never really been sure the guy was clear on the concept of an inside-voice, but now he was almost whispering. "I gotta say, I recommend you leave. Get on outta here. Doyle had no right to make this decision without consulting the head honcho. If we fail, you can come pick our bones clean."

Doyle scrubbed a hand back through his hair; Tucker caught himself squinting for evidence of a toupee. Nobody had such perfect hair. Nobody. "But it's all so pointless! This is an ideal scenario! And believe it or not, Miss Kimball, I am working with the shelter's best interests at heart!"

"Look," Kimball said, and leaned forward against the counter, putting her head in her hands. "Just... just listen, for a minute. I'm the only one who has anything meaningful to lose, here. And I made a promise to myself a long time ago that this place sinks or swims, fine, okay, but it sinks or swims on my terms."

"Needing control over a situation does not confer any degree of nobility to your action," Hargrove said.

Kimball glanced up. "This is a home, you pompous ass. And not just for the animals. I don't believe for a second that you have anybody's best interests at heart other than your own."

"I, on the other hand," Hargrove said, as though she hadn't spoken, "have no particular need to list nobility among my motives. I don't lie to myself, Miss Kimball. And let me assure you: I have less pleasant ways to get what I want."

Tucker had time to hear Grif whisper, "Oh shit!" before he noticed that Carolina had entered the room. When he glanced over to her, his breath caught in his throat.

She was standing loose-limbed at the entrance to the cat side, bouncing slightly on the balls of her feet, and she was smiling.

"Hargrove," she said.

As he looked at her, his treacly smile vanished. "Ah, yes. Carolina, was it?"

Carolina pointed to her name tag, tapping one nail against the little hand-drawn happy face. "You got it. How would you like to leave my friends alone?"

"I'm afraid I don't—"

Tucker didn't actually see her move. Going back over the memory in his mind was like watching a scene in stop-motion. Carolina was standing on the other side of the room, and then without any intervening motion she had Hargrove slammed against a wall, one hand bunched up in the fabric of his expensive shirt, the other arm in a bar across his throat. "Whoa!" Tucker yelped, because dude was an ass but dude was also, like, a million years old. "Whoa, whoa, whoa!"

Carolina grinned, her expression something feral. "Oh, we're just having a little chat. Everything's fine here."

Hargrove sputtered when Carolina pulled her arm away from his throat. "This is outrageous! What do you think you're—"

"Nah," Carolina said, and shoved him against the wall again. "You know what I want to hear, Hargrove. What's the matter? You can dish it out but you can't take it? You think I haven't been checking up on you, haven't heard about the disappearances that always seem to follow when you don't get your way?" She released him for a moment only to slam him back against the wall. "What about Wash? Was that you, too? You understand, I'm in a very good position here to administer pain. And I don't just mean to you, physically, right here and right now."

"Carolina," Kimball said.

Her voice was soft, but Carolina reacted instantly, drew back to stand two paces away from Hargrove. At attention.

Hargrove gasped, rubbing at his throat, and said, hoarsely, "I hereby withdraw my interest in purchasing this facility."

"And?" Carolina said, her spine still ramrod-straight.

Hargrove smiled, bitterly. "You won't be seeing me again."

"Glad we could have this talk," Carolina said.

Hargrove turned on his heel. Stumbled past Tucker and out the glass doors.

There was a moment of stunned silence.

Grey said, softly, "That was _so attractive_."

Carolina's shoulders relaxed; without a word, she walked past all of them, back into the cat side of the shelter.

"I," Doyle said. "I... perhaps I should get back to work."

"Yup," Sarge said.

"You think?" Grif grumbled, and grabbed Simmons by the shoulder. "C'mon, Spineless McNerdface"

The door to the dog side closed on Simmons' wail of, "It's the truth! What was I _supposed_ to say?"

When Grey glanced at Kimball, her habitual cheery grin became a little more fixed. "Hey, Doc, how would you like to find out more about the fascinating world of feline feces?"

"Um," said Doc. "Do I have to?"

In response, Grey snagged him by the arm and dragged him into the cat side.

When the room was emptied of everyone except Tucker and Kimball, he could actually hear her breathing, hard and ragged. She was still looking at the spot where Carolina had shoved Hargrove against the wall. Tucker said, cautiously, "Hey, uh. I really do need to get at that cat food, it's just... behind the counter?"

Kimball blinked, seemed to come back to herself. "Tucker. Sorry, yes. I don't." She gave a nervous little yelp of a laugh. "What the hell just happened?"

Tucker edged past her to pick up a couple bags of food. "Well, normally I'd say you're probably looking at a lawsuit, but I saw Hargrove's face. Dude was terrified! I think he might've been serious about backing off. I mean, I would. Turns out yours is pretty scary."

Kimball rolled her eyes. "Carolina is not 'mine', Tucker."

Tucker shrugged, settling the heavy bags under his arms and trudging toward the door. "I mean, she stopped the second you said her name. Just saying."

Kimball's gaze went far away for a second, but she shook her head, leaning against the counter. "I have no idea what's happening right now. Just, every day is weirder than the last."

"Pretty much," Tucker said, cheerfully. "But I know it felt damn good to see Hargrove get his ass handed to him."

A faint smile flickered at the corner of Kimball's mouth. "It did, at that. See you later, Tucker."

"Yup," said Tucker, backing out of the front doors. Just before they closed behind him, he called, "You know, I bet Carolina would be totally on board with you ordering her around—"

"Good _bye_ , Tucker."

"I'm just saying!"


	7. Impermanence

"—the weather's lovely here and I'm sure—"

Kimball, slumped on the floor with her back to the couch, kicked one leg out to scuff her toes against a smudge on the edge of the coffee table. Her socks were an absurdly cheerful pair, fuzzy and dotted with bright yellow smiley faces. She glared at them.

"—in any case, I wish you were here. I wish I could be there. Tell me you're at least spending Thanksgiving with friends?"

Snapping guiltily back to the conversation, Kimball straightened her posture, adjusting her phone against her shoulder. On the TV screen, a muted tableau of giant robots held together with what appeared to be duct tape were locked in epic combat. "It's fine, Ma, don't worry about me. I'm glad it's so nice there. Sunny days on a tropical island, who'd have thought? It's miserable out here. Snowing already, can you believe it? We've had four inches already and it's not supposed to let up until tomorrow."

A brief silence on the other end of the line. "You're dodging the question by trying to appeal to my motherly need to remind you to dress warmly, aren't you?"

"No?" Kimball tried, then sighed. "Maybe. Look, everyone's out of town, it's fine. Just going to watch some TV and call it a night. It's kind of an annoying holiday anyway, you know."

Her mother could communicate a disapproving frown across 1,500 miles like she was standing in the same room. "At least make yourself a nice dinner."

Kimball stretched her arms over her head. Her fridge was a desolate wasteland at the best of times, but there was definitely a carton of fried rice that hadn't gone off yet. On screen, one of the giant robots stumbled backward into a poorly constructed house that looked like it was made of plaster. Or possibly gingerbread. "Absolutely."

"And make sure you don't—"

Kimball blinked, pressed the phone to her shoulder for a moment, and turned to face the door. Silence. "Sorry, Ma, I could've sworn I heard—"

Another knock, louder this time, along with a strange scrabbling sound.

Kimball pushed to her feet. "Hang on, there's someone at the door."

Her mom sighed. "Don't tell me you've been antagonizing that downstairs neighbor again. He's your landlord, Ness, you've gotta be more careful."

"I'm not antagonizing anyone," Kimball said, and paused midway through unlocking the deadbolt. She was... she was like ninety percent sure the door had just emitted a low yowl. She cleared her throat, raising her voice. "Uh. Who's there?"

A pause, then, in a particularly strained tone, "It's Carolina. From the shelter. Hi." Another clattering sound, a soft curse.

"I," said Kimball. "Uh. Hey, you know what, Ma? I'm gonna have to call you back."

"Dress warmly!" her mother said, and Kimball ended the call in the same motion as she opened the door.

Carolina in the doorway to her apartment was a bit of a strange sight all on its own. But Carolina's cheeks were flushed, her hair was plastered to her forehead, there was a thin layer of snow coating the shoulders of her jacket... and she was gamely clinging to a scrawny, scruffy, soaking-wet cat that had dug its claws into her arm and appeared to be trying to surgically remove every bone in her left hand with its sharp little teeth.

The second Kimball opened the door, Carolina stretched past her to launch the cat into her apartment; once free, the cat gave a victorious yowl and tore across the room, its claws clattering loudly on the cheap linoleum floors.

Kimball stared at Carolina. Carolina stared at Kimball. Somewhere in the depths of the apartment, a dull thud marked the cat's discovery of the bathroom door.

"Hi," Carolina said, brushing snow casually off her shoulders.

"Did you..." Kimball glanced over her shoulder; the cat ricocheted off a closet door and tore into the kitchen. "Did you just throw a random cat into my apartment for no reason?"

"I can see how it might look that way," Carolina said, and winced as she plucked at her torn-up sleeve. "Damn. I just got this jacket."

"You can't just." Kimball winced at the sound of something moderately fragile falling from a great height. "Why are you throwing cats?"

Carolina offered up a fixed, strained smile. "I was in the neighborhood?"

Kimball leaned against the doorframe. "...what?"

Carolina peeled back the sleeve of her jacket. The skin beneath was criss-crossed with bleeding scratches and a number of particularly alarming-looking puncture marks. "Huh."

Rubbing her face, Kimball backed out of the doorway. "You'd better come in and get cleaned up. Did it bite you hard enough to break the skin?"

"Um," Carolina said, stepping gingerly past Kimball and pulling off her jacket. "Only... five or six times?"

A warning yowl sounded from the vicinity of the bedroom. "Sit down. I've got some Neosporin somewhere. Is this really just a random cat from outside?"

Carolina draped her jacket over the back of the couch and slumped into a kitchen chair, rolling up her bloodied sleeve. "I... yes, I guess you could say that."

Kimball rummaged through a cupboard until she found her first-aid kit, then paused to wash her hands and fill a bowl with water before perching on a chair across from Carolina. "Carolina, it's probably got fleas. It could have ringworm! Rabies! What were you thinking? You know how carefully we quarantine the animals at the shelter during intake! Stop poking at it, you're making it worse. Here, use this to wipe off the blood. Make sure it's as clean as you can get it."

"I know how to clean a wound," Carolina said, and the vaguely amused tone of her voice made Kimball seriously wonder if it was possible to spontaneously combust from exasperation. "I found the cat outside your apartment complex. It's freezing out there, I didn't think it should be out in the cold. Took me half an hour to coax it out of a tree."

Kimball waved off Carolina's hands and pressed a cotton ball swabbed with disinfectant into the deepest bite. Carolina shivered; Kimball pressed a hand to her shoulder and felt the chill practically radiating off her. "You're freezing."

Carolina shrugged her off. "It's pretty cold outside. Hence me wanting to rescue the cat."

"That's... okay, that's a good thing to do, but hanging onto the cat like that was really dangerous. You should go to urgent care. Cat bites aren't something you should take lightly, they almost always get infected. Jensen had to go in for surgery once after a bite on the hand."

"I know," Carolina said, "I've heard Dr. Grey's warnings. First sign of swelling, I'll go straight to the doctor. Nice socks."

Kimball squinted at Carolina, who blinked innocently back. "Yes," she said. "They are nice socks. Why the hell are you here, Carolina?"

Carolina finally winced at a particularly rough swipe of the cotton ball. Good. "Like I said, I was in the neighborhood. Saw the cat, didn't want to try driving in this weather with a strange cat in my car, you were right here. Made sense to bring the cat in."

"Nothing about that makes sense! Why are you even here?"

Carolina shifted, staring around the room. Her gaze was caught by the corner of the room where water damage from upstairs had slowly stripped the paint away from near the ceiling. There was a small splash of white powdery paint where the water had dripped down to the floor. "Nice... nice place?"

"Good try," Kimball said, pressing a bandage to Carolina's arm. "The only reason this complex hasn't been condemned or torn down is because the landlord's got friends in high places. He's also literally the only person in town willing to accept a monthly lease instead of a yearly. He's making a killing. It's a shithole. You're lucky you came to visit before cockroach season starts in earnest. And now there are muddy pawprints everywhere, great. Which brings me back to my first question: why are you even here?"

Carolina squared her jaw, rubbing at her bandaged arm. "I—"

"Stop," Kimball said. "Don't lie to me. Try again."

Carolina sighed. "I wasn't going to lie, Kimball. I... try to stop by here every now and then to make sure everything's okay. Not... I mean, it's nothing creepy, just a quick drive-by. After what happened with Wash and Tucker, I'm worried that something could happen to. Well. Someone else."

Kimball walked over to the sink, rinsing her hands under water so hot it almost burned. By the time she sat back down across from Carolina, she felt equal to speaking again without sputtering. "Is that a risk?"

"I don't..." Carolina shrugged. "Look, I don't think Hargrove had anything to do with what happened to Wash. But you're right. Something's going on."

"And you don't know what that something is?"

"I have a suspicion. And I'm going to find out," said Carolina, softly. "I want to make sure nobody else gets hurt."

Kimball sighed, resting her elbows on the table and running both hands back through her hair. "This is ridiculous."

"Kimball," said Carolina, and waited until Kimball looked up again. "I'm here to help. No matter what you might think of me, I promise you that."

The sincerity of her expression was spoiled somewhat when a ululating yowl sounded from the bedroom and the cat tore past, claws clattering on the floor, to lodge itself under the couch.

"Well," Carolina said, "I guess it's lucky you don't already have a cat? I'm honestly a little surprised. Seems like everyone at the shelter does. I know Palomo has three at home."

"This is a pet-free complex," Kimball said.

"Except for the cockroaches?"

And Carolina's smile was so forced, so desperately trying to lighten the mood, that Kimball couldn't help but smile back. "Yeah. Except for the cockroaches."

"I'm sorry," Carolina said. "I saw the cat, I panicked. If you have a carrier here, I can just bring it to the shelter."

"Shelter's closed," said Kimball, and added, in the face of Carolina's baffled expression, "it's Thanksgiving. Weather's bad, too. Smith lives a few doors down from the shelter, so he'll be checking in on the animals tonight."

"Oh. Right. Thanksgiving."

Kimball picked at a little bit of wood missing from the edge of the table, then pushed to her feet, pulling open the pantry to dig into one of the extra bags of cat food she kept for the shelter in case of emergency. "Not spending it with family?"

"Dad's at work. Don't think he realized what day it was."

Kimball had to make herself keep moving, casually grabbing a bowl to fill with the dry food. Someday, she thought, she'd probably get over the deer-in-headlights reaction to any hint of personal information Carolina happened to divulge. "I don't think you've mentioned your father before. What does he do?"

"Scientist," Carolina said, shortly. "Hey, what on earth is this on TV?"

Kimball turned, placing the bowl of food alongside a bowl of water on the floor. "Don't tell me you don't know about the MST3K Thanksgiving marathon?"

Carolina squinted at the screen. "Let's say I have no idea what you're talking about."

Kimball grinned, digging through a cupboard for a shallow plastic pan that would do double-duty as a litterbox. "Bunch of people watch terrible movies and make fun of them. It's great. It's a tradition!"

"Is that guy... singing with the little robots? Are they supposed to be in space? How does that even work?"

"It's an acquired taste," Kimball said, primly.

"Huh," said Carolina, watching her dump litter into the box. "You're oddly prepared for this."

"Yeah," Kimball said, moving to place the litter box in the bathroom. "I run a cat shelter and I have a bunch of extra cat supplies at home. Go figure."

"You're being really sarcastic for somebody wearing yellow fuzzy smiley-face socks."

"These are very nice socks," Kimball said, and flattened herself down on the living room floor to look under the couch. The cat was wedged up in a corner, but it was staring at her with undilated orange eyes, apparently unconcerned by her intrusion. "I think she's calmed down."

"She?"

"Dilute calico," Kimball said. "Extremely unlikely to be male with that coloring. Looks like she's not all that muddy, either. Must've mostly been melted snow."

Carolina's chair scraped against the floor as she stood. "I can try to get her out for you?"

"Oh god no," Kimball said, pushing to her feet. "You just... you just stay over there and stop getting injured by small fuzzy creatures. I'll leave a trail of treats to the food, she'll come out when she's good and ready. I'll try to get some food in her before bringing her to the shelter tomorrow. Should help with intake if she's already eating well."

"That's... that's good," Carolina said. "Well, I, uh. I should probably. Head out."

"Continue on your not-at-all creepy crusade to keep us all safe?"

Carolina smiled, grabbing her jacket from the back of the couch. "Something like that. Happy Thanksgiving, Kimball."

Kimball looked at Carolina, with her bandaged arm and persistent shivers, then peered out the window at the layers upon layers of snow already falling as daylight faded. Yeah. This was a thing. This was very much a thing that was happening right now. Okay. Right. Great.

She sighed. "Look, the weather's awful right now. You want to stay for a beer, wait for a break in the snow?"

Carolina cocked her head to one side. "I wouldn't want to intrude on your... weird... fuzzy-sock... robot movie party."

Kimball groaned, pulled open the fridge, and tossed a bottle directly at Carolina's head; she snatched it out of the air with annoying ease. "You're lucky I have a soft spot for strays."

Carolina peered at the label. "Wow."

"What?" Kimball popped the top off her beer using the edge of the counter. "Don't judge."

"I wasn't judging," Carolina said, holding her beer gingerly by the neck. "This looks... well, there's sure a lot of fruit in this, huh?"

Kimball sank down into a chair at the kitchen table and took a swig to hide her smile. "You're judging my taste in beer. Unbelievable. You come in here uninvited, throw a random cat at me, judge my TV show, judge my socks, judge my beer..."

"They're very nice socks," Carolina said. She dropped her jacket back on the couch (accompanied by a warning growl from the cat), and sat down across the table from Kimball, popping her own beer open. "And this is refreshing. Like a, wow, like a fruit punch. No danger of scurvy for you. Very healthy."

"Okay, hotshot," Kimball said, "what's your drink of choice? You more used to moonshine from unauthorized stills near the front lines?"

Carolina shrugged. "Well."

"You are such a cliché," Kimball grumbled, and took a longer swallow. "So you were in the military."

Carolina bobbed her head from side to side, like she was trying to figure out how to attack the drink in front of her. "Yes. Navy ROTC paid for college, did my eight years in the marines, came back here to work in security."

"Okay, the army I can believe, but picturing you in college is a bit more of a stretch," Kimball said. "What was your major?"

"Particle physics."

Kimball blinked. "You're kidding. I can't tell if you're kidding?"

"I'm full of mysteries," Carolina said. Mysteriously. "You were pre-law?"

"I mean, yeah," said Kimball. "Double-major in communications and political science. Hey, are you hungry? I've just got some fried rice in the fridge, but I could heat it up."

"No turkey? Stuffing? Sweet potatoes?"

"Don't push it, hotshot."

Carolina smiled and saluted with her bottle. "Thanks. Turns out coaxing a cat out of a tree builds up an appetite."

"For you," Kimball said, with an exaggerated flourish of the carton, "I'll even heat it up in a skillet instead of the microwave."

"You shouldn't have," Carolina said, and golf-clapped politely while Kimball re-fried the fried rice and presented it to her on a paper plate, complete with plastic cutlery.

"Sorry for the lack of, well, everything," Kimball said. "Never got around to buying real dishes. Terrible for the environment, I know."

"Hey," Carolina said, her mouth already full, "I'm not going to turn down free food. And I think I got all my judging out of my system."

"Uh-huh," said Kimball, and tried to conceal a little sigh of relief when she tasted the food. She'd been pretty sure it wasn't _that_ old, but anything coming from that fridge was a bit of a toss-up.

"So," Carolina said, chewing thoughtfully. "Monthly lease, huh?"

"You're judging again," said Kimball.

"The socks really aren't that bad, they're growing on me."

" _Carolina._ "

"I mean, how long have you been living here? Years?"

Kimball shrugged.

Carolina pointed at her with her plastic fork. "You want to be able to pack up and leave at a moment's notice. And you're definitely paying more than this place is worth to be able to break your lease at any time. You're sure the life you deserve is just around the corner, so you're gonna run off and, whatever, become a big hotshot lawyer, and if that means making yourself miserable here so you can up and leave more easily, so much the better."

Kimball took a long swig of her beer. "Sure, but consider this: it's really none of your business."

Raising her hands to signal surrender, Carolina dug back into her food, squinting at the TV screen. "Is that Godzilla? And... _Santa Claus_?"

"Acquired taste," Kimball said, again, then whispered, " _Look!_ "

The little cat was nosing her way out from under the couch, sniffing curiously at the tuna treats Kimball had left on the floor. As they watched, she crunched down on the treat, then ran to the next one in the chain and positively inhaled it. "Good call," Carolina said.

Kimball beamed, watching the cat start in on the bowl of food.

"You're good at this," Carolina said. "I mean, this may have started off as a stepping-stone to something bigger, but you've really got something here. You've had something for a while."

Kimball dangled her mostly-empty bottle from two fingers. "You're assuming a lot."

"Probably," said Carolina. "You should keep the cat."

Kimball let the bottle drop; it clanked loudly against the table. "What?"

Carolina nodded to the cat. "You don't need to take her to the shelter. We're over capacity as it is. Keep her here. Or move somewhere with a yearly lease, admit you're maybe a little more stuck here than you'd like to think. Make ties, start a life. Stop getting ready to run."

"I'm really starting to regret asking you to stay for dinner," Kimball said. It came out less joking than she'd intended.

"Hey, if you can look back on this moment ten years from now and I'm your biggest regret? That's not half bad." Carolina nudged a couple peas with her fork, pushing them around the plate. "If this is such a temporary gig, why were you so adamantly opposed to Hargrove buying you out?"

Kimball stood, so suddenly that the cat was startled into dashing back under the couch, and dumped her plate and cutlery into the garbage. "Somehow I don't think you've got your shit together to the point where you can be lecturing me."

Carolina actually flinched. "Kimball, no, I... I was just pointing out what I saw."

"And you'll forgive me if I'm a little skeptical of the unfiltered brainpower of someone who told a hospitalized friend to go fuck himself."

Carolina's hand, resting on the table, clenched briefly into a fist. "You saw that out of context. Wash and I are okay. You don't know anything about what we've been through together."

"Great," Kimball said, leaning back against the counter with her arms crossed. "And you don't know anything about me."

"Maybe," Carolina said. "But I know exactly what happens when you give up what you've got for the off-chance at some unrealistic dream you've built up in your head. And I think you do, too. My father..."

Kimball crossed her arms tighter to hide the way she was shaking. "Oh, don't stop now, we're just getting started."

Carolina hesitated, then seemed to come to a decision, rapping her knuckles against the table. "My mom was killed in action when I was six. My father tore our lives apart in his grief instead of just... I mean, I was right there, and it was like he never really saw me."

Numb, Kimball sank back into the chair across from her. "Carolina, I'm so sorry."

Carolina's hand turned palm-up. "I didn't mean to... I mean, thank you, but I'm past that now. What I mean is sometimes you have a good thing right in front of you and never notice."

"Right," Kimball said. "Okay."

The silence stretched a moment too long; Carolina looked down, then picked up her empty bottle, squinting at it. "This stuff is pretty potent considering how ridiculous it is."

Kimball laughed, a little too loud. "Oh, so now it's acceptable?"

"'Acceptable' is pushing it," Carolina said. "But it works pretty well for warming up after standing out in the cold for so long."

"Speaking of which." Kimball nodded back to the couch, where the cat was poking her nose out again.

To her surprise, Carolina dangled her fingers down beside her chair and clicked her tongue. To her absolute astonishment, the cat trotted over and sat beside her, licking Carolina's fingertips.

When Kimball looked up, Carolina seemed every bit as surprised as she was. "That doesn't usually work," Carolina said, and gave the cat a cautious scratch behind the ears. "Cute little thing, now that she's calmed down and stopped tearing my arm apart."

"Probably someone's pet," Kimball said. "I'll put up posters. _After_ I take her to the vet."

Carolina glanced up, her eyes almost comically wide. "You're keeping her?"

"I haven't decided," Kimball said, at the precise moment the cat hopped up on Carolina's lap, purring like a jet engine. Dammit. "Okay. I'll decide about bringing her to the shelter once I'm sure nobody here's going to claim her."

"Good enough," Carolina said, stroking the cat cautiously.

"You should take her," Kimball said, grinning. "She seems to have taken a liking to you."

"I've never had pets," Carolina said. "And besides, I think I'm more of a dog person, anyway." But she was smiling as she shifted her weight to accommodate the cat's position, letting her curl into a tighter ball, still purring away.

Carolina looked good, Kimball thought. Happy. Relaxed. And did her cheeks always flush like that when she'd had something to drink? Out of the snow, the strands of hair outside her ponytail were drying in funny little curls, framing her face, bringing out the red in her cheeks, in her lips...

"What, do I have something stuck in my teeth?"

Kimball snapped back to reality with the alarming realization that she'd propped one elbow on the table and had been leaning her chin into the palm of her hand, staring at Carolina. Staring, more precisely, at Carolina's lips.

Okay. Right. Great.

She stood, cleared her throat. "You should stay. I mean, it's getting pretty terrible out there. Weather-wise. You can crash on the couch."

Carolina shifted, glanced over her shoulder. "I'm sure I'd be fine driving..."

"Look, I was just on the phone with Ma, and her spirit lingers on after every one of those phone calls. She'd never forgive me if I let someone drive in this weather. Besides, you look tired." Kimball took Carolina's plate—empty of all but a few lone peas—and dumped it in the trash. "Also, you're trapped by a small purring cat. You're pretty much stuck here."

"Thanks," Carolina said. "I really appreciate it."

"It's no trouble," Kimball said, walking over to the hall closet. "Cockroach season hasn't started yet, so you should be golden. It's actually a pretty comfy couch. I'm taller than you, and I sleep on it just fine all the time. And..." She pulled a corner of the blanket out of the closet with a flourish. "You get this!"

Carolina stared. "It... matches your socks?"

The blanket was massive, fuzzy, and emblazoned with bright yellow happy faces. "It's a very nice blanket," Kimball said. "It's also really heavy. Kept me warm when the heating went out last week. Although if you get claustrophobic easily, it might be a bad choice. Really, really heavy." She yanked on it to illustrate, barely managing to pull it out of the closet.

"That sounds really nice, actually," Carolina said, and stood up, which earned her a grumble from the displaced cat. "I'm sorry for barging in on your Thanksgiving. And... the other stuff. I shouldn't have pried."

"There's nothing to be sorry about. What are friends for?"

The corner of Carolina's mouth curled into a smile. "Just tell me I don't have to watch this godawful robot show."

"Don't push your luck."

* * *

Kimball woke up once during the night, stared at the ceiling. There was a faint sound, just on the edge of hearing, a distant hum.

She rolled onto her side in the dark, watched the heavy clumps of snow gathering against the window. The clock on her bedside table flashed **3:25**. The new chill in the air meant the heater had turned itself off again.

Shivering, she padded along the cold floor, opened her bedroom door, and stepped cautiously into the blackness. A faint light was flickering in the living room, and the hum resolved itself into soft voices.

She paused in the doorway, staring.

On the TV screen, Mike Nelson and his robots were arguing about the viability of severed heads kept alive in vats. Carolina was sprawled under her smiley-face blanket, her head pillowed against the arm of the couch, eyes closed, mouth open, one hand dangling limply toward the remote she'd dropped on the floor. She was snoring softly. In the flickering light of the screen Kimball could just make out a fuzzy little semi-circle curled next to Carolina's feet.

Kimball leaned forward, shut off the TV. Stood for a moment in the darkness listening to Carolina's breathing. Went back to bed, pulled the blankets in close, and curled around the unfamiliar warmth in the pit of her stomach until her breathing evened out and she drifted easily into sleep.

* * *

The snow stopped during the night, the day dawning heavy with cloud. In honor of the occasion, Kimball served up a gourmet breakfast of freezer-burned waffles.

"Wish I didn't have to leave for work right away," Carolina grumbled, dunking a forkful of waffles into a truly alarming quantity of syrup. "You say you've got DVD sets of this show?"

"Do I ever," Kimball said, grinning. "Wait until you see Manos: The Hands of Fate! It's a classic."

"Sounds terrible," Carolina said with a smirk, and actually used her fork to scoop up the last of her syrup. "Okay. I'd better head out so I can shower and change at home. Thanks again for everything."

"Sure," said Kimball, pushing to her feet. "Thanks for the random cat."

Carolina paused next to the couch to stroke the cat in question. "You picked a name for her yet?"

"I still haven't decided to keep her."

"Uh-huh." Carolina grinned, then paused. "Hang on." She reached into her pocket for her buzzing phone. "Hello? Yes, I'll be coming in today. About an hour."

Kimball cleared away the dishes, trying her best not to eavesdrop on Carolina's side of the conversation, and when that failed miserably, trying her best not to feel bad about eavesdropping.

"I don't understand," Carolina said. "Aren't we..." A pause. "No. Yes, sir. I understand, sir."

Kimball waited a couple seconds after Carolina finished the call to turn around, just to avoid making it quite so obvious that she'd been listening in. When she did turn, she froze in place; Carolina looked... well, stricken was the first word that came to mind. She was staring at the floor, lips pressed into a tight line, and all the color seemed to have gone out of her face.

"Carolina?"

She looked up. Smiled. "Sorry about that."

"Is something wrong?"

"Everything's fine." Carolina grabbed her jacket and drew it on. "Work's gonna be a pain in the ass today."

"Sorry to hear that," Kimball said, and wondered who the hell called their boss _sir_. "You, I mean, you know you don't have to do this alone, right?"

Carolina paused with her hand on the doorknob. Her voice was calm and even. "Do what, exactly?"

"Whatever this is. It's, look, it's really not..."

Practically a monotone. "Not what?"

Kimball had the sudden, overwhelming sense of something slipping between her outstretched fingers. "...sustainable? You can keep pushing me away, Carolina, but I want to help. And I think you want me to help you. You're driving by my apartment at all hours, you're, I mean, what you did with Hargrove was really great, but also really terrifying. I just, I don't know how to keep on going like this. It's not... it's not fair."

Carolina looked down again, but her voice hadn't lost its emotionless timbre. "You're right. That's part of what that call was about. I'm being transferred out of state. I don't think I'll be back at the shelter. I'm sorry."

Kimball's brow furrowed. She took a step forward. A step back. "Carolina, what the hell?"

"It's not fair," Carolina said. "You just said it. I'm sorry. What's happening is my business. It's not fair to you to keep pulling you in."

"Carolina, I am already pulled in! I am pretty much as pulled in as it's possible to get!"

Carolina stared at the floor a moment longer, digging her toe into a crack in the linoleum, then took a breath. Closed the gap between them in two long strides. Pressed a hand to the back of Kimball's head, pressed her lips to the corner of Kimball's mouth, once, briefly, and pulled back. "Hey," she said. "You're right. It's not sustainable. It's not fair to you."

And she left.

Kimball stared at the closed door until the quick and precise rhythm of Carolina's footfalls died away. No hesitation.

She made herself move, finally, to the window, stared out at the smothering sky. The damn sun was coming out, finally, but it seemed like a small and half-hearted light against the immutable weight of the ice and snow.

"Okay," she said, softly. "Right. Great."


End file.
